Faced with the scale of the controversy, she pleads a simple “valve” that fell flat, “misinterpreted”. The host of “Quelle Époque” Léa Salamé returned on Saturday evening to her comments made last week to the comedian Artus, on her giving up alcohol and cigarettes. “You have become boring,” the journalist from the France 2 talk show scoffed, triggering a “tsunami” of reactions, in her own words. A “joke” but “certainly not an apology for alcohol”, she defended herself on Saturday, in the preamble to a program devoted in part for the occasion to the “ravages” of this consumption.
This “controversy of the week” was discussed from the first minutes of the talk show, initially in a light tone. “The valves, I’ll stop, I’ll leave them to you. I don’t know how to do it, and when you don’t know how to do it, you don’t do it,” quipped Léa Salamé, speaking to one of the comedians on her team, Paul Saint-Sernin.
“We all felt it was a joke”
Before adopting a more serious tone. “I received so many messages, there were so many reactions, between those who were shocked by my joke, those who were shocked by the extent of the reactions to this valve, in mode definitely, we can’t say anything anymore », continued the journalist. “At first I was surprised because it was really a joke. We all felt it was a joke, Artus too. And in no way an apology for alcohol,” she insisted.
“But then it got me thinking. And we said with our team that this posed a real question, that it opened a real social debate, a substantive subject,” she added. A little later in the show, around ten minutes were devoted to the dangers of alcohol consumption, with emergency doctor Gérald Kierzek.
Artus “sorry for the extent of the criticism”
During the sequence, Léa Salamé notably felt that the comedian and director Artus, who had come to present his film “Un p’tit truc en plus”, had “responded really well” to her remark. “Fuck you. If I had said that I was quitting coke, everyone would have said well done,” he replied. “We loved his response, his way of saying fuck you, so we kept it,” explained the journalist. She also claimed that the actor had called her following the controversy: “He was sorry for the extent of the criticism. He told me : I don’t understand, it was a waste “, she said.
However, she admitted having “reflected something French”, believing that “we must not trivialize” the risks of alcohol and on the contrary “break preconceived ideas” about stopping consumption. “We are the public service, we have to be even more careful”, but “and on the other side, I received a lot of messages saying: we all understood that you were playing “, nevertheless insisted the journalist.
More broadly, she indicated having received several tens of thousands of messages, of which she gave two examples, one criticizing the public service for “conveying this type of message”, the other congratulating her on the contrary for these remarks, coming of an “alcohol addict” who believes that “you have to know how to laugh at everything”. In conclusion, Léa Salamé finally indicated that she would “no longer make jokes” on the subject, recalling that alcohol consumption remained “a danger, a scourge which wreaks havoc” and an “immense suffering for those who are dependent”.
“It kills 41,000 people a year”
For his part, doctor Gérald Kierzek estimated that “you can be friendly and funny without alcohol”. He stressed that alcohol “kills 41,000 people per year”, and that 200 diseases were linked “to alcohol consumption and not just alcoholism”, “a medical and psychological tragedy”. The Télématin columnist thus recalled the recommendations of “ten drinks per week maximum”, at the rate of “two glasses per day”, but “not every day”.
“Afterwards, from there to saying that you absolutely cannot drink, ever, in your life… I believe that there is a principle of reality,” he said. He also felt that “we need moderation in our comments” and “from time to time release this valve”. “It’s better zero (consumption), but you can drink a small glass from time to time, it doesn’t do any harm and has never killed anyone either”, insisted the doctor, who estimated that “everything is epidermal” at the moment current. “And that, on all subjects,” replied Léa Salamé with a sigh.
