“Another life awaits me but I will never forget you and I will always defend radio, wherever I am,” wrote Ms. Bloch, 71, who since 2022 has been director of broadcasts and editorial strategy for the public group. “Radio France owes you so much (…) Thank you for these 50 years, for your audacity, your modernity and your unfailing commitment,” replied the CEO of the public group, Sibyle Veil, on the same network. According to Télérama, Ms. Bloch will leave her position as of July 1 to “ensure her retirement rights.” Laurence Bloch is a pillar of Radio France, where she has worked since the end of the 70s. She is best known for having been the emblematic director of France Inter from 2014 to 2022, when she was replaced by Adèle Van Reeth. The first woman to manage Inter, Laurence Bloch managed to boost this station’s audiences and allow it to become the leading radio station in France in 2019, at the expense of RTL. A place that she has not left since. For this, Ms. Bloch rejuvenated and feminized the antenna. It was she who installed Charline Vanhoenacker, Augustin Trapenard, Nagui and even the morning duo Nicolas Demorand/Léa Salamé. They replaced Patrick Cohen when the latter left for Europe 1 in 2017, to the great dismay of his boss.
Conversely, Laurence Bloch excluded big names from the generation above, such as Daniel Mermet, Ivan Levaï or Philippe Meyer. She had succeeded as head of France Inter from Philippe Val, of whom she was deputy. Previously, this frail woman with a reputedly lively character had long been deputy director of another Radio France station, France Culture. His departure comes at a time when the government is carrying out a merger project of public broadcasting companies, including France Télévisions and Radio France. It also coincides with the controversy surrounding comedian Guillaume Meurice, who risks being fired from France Inter for contested remarks about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
