TF1 journalist Guillaume Debré appointed head of LCI

TF1 journalist Guillaume Debré will take the reins of the news channel LCI as general director from September 2, replacing Fabien Namias, who is leaving for BFM-TV, the group announced on Thursday August 29.

Reporting to the group’s information director, Thierry Thuillier, “Guillaume Debré will be tasked with continuing development” from the continuous news channel “by asserting its premium positioning”explains TF1 in a press release.

Deputy editor-in-chief of TF1 since 2022 and replacement editor-in-chief of the weekend news and 8 p.m. news from 2018 to 2024, Guillaume Debré joined the private channel in 2005 after having been a journalist at CNN for five years.

A former correspondent in Washington, he covered Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election, to which he devoted two books. A former senior reporter, he also “covered the war in Syria from 2014 to 2016, the attacks of Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher in 2015 and is one of the few French journalists to have visited North Korea”recalls TF1.

A homegrown recruit

The journalist, son of the former president of the Assembly and the Constitutional Council Jean-Louis Debré, also headed the News service of TF1 from 2016 to 2022, “while supervising the daily regional press network”.

The group therefore called on an in-house recruit to take over from Fabien Namias, whose sudden departure from LCI was announced in July with immediate effect. An interim management team was then set up, with Thierry Thuillier, LCI editorial director Bastien Morassi and his deputy director, Hélène Lecomte.

Fabien Namias will replace the current general director of BFM-TV, Marc-Olivier Fogiel, who announced his departure in July after five years in office, following the takeover of the channel by the shipping company CMA CGM owned by billionaire Rodolphe Saadé.

The date of his taking up office is not yet known. “He will be there, and we look forward to welcoming him.”said CMA Media Vice President and Acting CEO of BFM and RMC, Nicolas de Tavernost, in an interview with Figaro published Thursday. “The sooner the better”added the former boss of the M6 ​​group.