“Exclusive investigation” adapts to current events. The teams from the Sunday magazine, presented by Bernard de La Villardière on M6, went to Syria – to Aleppo, Damascus and Idlib – to cover just a few hours after the fall of the Bashar El-Assad regime, which occurred this Sunday, December 8 2024, “the event which upsets the destiny of the country and the balance of the Middle East”. Seven days later – this Sunday, December 15 at 11:10 p.m. – they will offer “Syria, between hope and fear”, “a 52-minute report produced in a record time of 5 days in the heart of the remains of this recently fallen dictatorship“.
“Our journalists followed the new masters of the country as they installed themselves in power”
“It took twelve days to end half a century of dictatorship in Syria. On the night of December 7 to 8, the Islamist rebels of the Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) group overthrew Bashar El-Assad, a bloodthirsty despot.“, remind the channel and production in a press release. “In Damascus, the capital, the 'Exclusive Investigation' teams shared the jubilation of the residents. Our journalists followed the new masters of the country, the Islamists of the rebel group, in their installation in power, among them French“.
“From the presidential palace to the sinister Saydnaya prison, a place of repression and torture, our journalists had access to the vestiges of the dictatorship”describe the chain and production. “They also shared the hopes and fears of an entire people thirsting for freedom. And if some Syrians return to the country after years of exile, others flee, for fear of the new regime. So, who really are these jihadist rebels led by their leader Abu Mohammed Al-Joulani? What future for minorities, particularly Christians or Alawites? A story of a Syria suspended in the grip of its destiny?“, writes M6, which will later program the subject “Festivities, oil, tartans: Scotland between extravagance and tradition!”, originally planned.
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France 5 is also offering a special evening on Sunday
Like M6, France 5 will devote its prime time to Syria the same evening with an updated version of Antoine Vitkine's documentary“Bachar, the master of chaos”. In its original version, this 70-minute documentary looks back on “ten years of conflict mixing civil war, jihadism, regional and international war“. The author and director “retraces the journey of the Syrian dictator and the relations with France of a country which finds itself, today, in ruins and on the brink of the abyss“.
“How did the dictator remain at the head of his country for thirteen years, following the revolt born of the 'Arab Spring', a former medical student who did not want power? How did Bashar save his throne for so long? Why did he end up losing it? And what were the stakes of this war for us? What role did the West play?“, asks Antoine Vitkine who was able to speak with “exceptional witnesses” Who “sometimes speak for the first time, including a former confidant, a former minister or his current advisor“.
