Impertinent, provocative, subversive: Canal+, born in 1984, imposes a tone which quickly becomes its brand and of which only “Groland” on the encrypted channel and a few torchbearers elsewhere really remain, in the Bolloré era.
“Unfortunately, the Canal spirit is losing momentum. We are almost the last representatives,” laments Gustave Kervern, one of the pillars of the “Groland” adventure, which has been corrosive for 30 years, to AFP.
The comedian, who became a screenwriter and director, is a good example of Canal+'s in-house recipe from the beginning: launching young shoots in total freedom.
Furtive columnist of the “Top 50” by Yvan le Bolloc’h and Bruno Solo, Gustave Kervern then took the wheel of the show “Le plein de super”: “We were in total freewheeling”.
This “impression of being in a funfair, where everything was free, where everything was possible”, Jamel Debbouze confirms it in “Very first time”, a book of memories of the talents unearthed at C+ collected by Michel Denisot, former flagship host of the chain.
Alain De Greef and Pierre Lescure, two of the brains at the helm of the inaugural Canal+, had “this talent for having this group effect, this creative boiling, this general emulation”, recalls Gustave Kervern.
– “Too much derision” –
This duo incubates Les Nuls, a quartet merging two little hands from C+ and two hosts spotted by chance on a regional channel, who have become a symbol of this Canal spirit in the same way as “Les guignols de l'info”, satirical puppets which make those of TF1, “The corny show”.
José Garcia, now a popular actor, is another Canal baby. Initially a room attendant for the star show “Nulle Part Else” (which featured Les Nuls and “Guignols”), he was associated with Antoine de Caunes to dynamite the program.
The end of recess was whistled in 2015, after the arrival of Vincent Bolloré at the head of parent company Vivendi.
“Vincent Bolloré has broken the Canal spirit, he brags about it,” summarizes for AFP a source, journalist and former manager of a Canal+ group channel (one of the pieces of the empire-puzzle Bolloré), having requested anonymity.
The conservative billionaire said in February 2015 on France Inter that the Canal spirit was “a little too much derision”. The signature shows disappear one after the other, like the “Guignols”. In 2020, the dismissal of comedian Sébastien Thoen (however returned to the fold of C+ in 2023) led to the departure of around thirty employees.
“I am absolutely not responsible for anything that can happen in a group of this size,” says Vincent Bolloré, questioned by the parliamentary commission of inquiry into the allocation of TV frequencies in March 2024.
– “Hallucinating” –
“Groland”, another owner of which is Benoît Delépine, former author of the golden age of “Guignols”, looks like the last bastion within the channel and in the French audiovisual landscape.
“It’s more about black humor which almost no longer exists on television, it’s still amazing,” expands Gustave Kervern.
“+Gus+ and Benoît, they wonder if they are not on an ejection seat, if they will be on Canal+ the following year”, describes to AFP Yolande Moreau, one of the pair's favorite cinema actresses. directors Kervern-Delépine (“Mammuth”, “Le grand soir”, etc.).
She was also one of the faces of C+ within the “Deschiens” gang. Gustave Kervern, as if to perpetuate this Canal spirit, also brings together Yolande Moreau, other members of “Deschiens”, as well as an emblematic actor from “Groland” in “Je ne me sera plus faire”, a fiction produced solo , broadcast soon on Arte.
We also find in the cast Alison Wheeler and Jonathan Cohen, who also passed through the C+ incubator more recently. It is undoubtedly in these kinds of projects that the Canal spirit still resides, or in a comedian like Blanche Gardin who Yolande Moreau appreciates.
For its anniversary date, November 4, the encrypted channel notably offers “40”, a prime time program presented by Antoine de Caunes, with many talents revealed on C+.
