What happened behind the scenes of “Scenes of Households”? In a substantiated investigation – compiling around ten testimonies, most of them anonymous – “Médiapart” echoes, this Thursday, September 26, 2024, the discussions between, on the one hand, Claudia Mongumu and Ryad Baxx, and M6 on the other , the days preceding the official announcement of the departure of the two actors from the series.
A “brutal” and “political” eviction
At the beginning of July 2024, in fact, the channel and the production company Kabo Family jointly announced to the two actors that from September 2025 they will do without Louise and Jalil, a couple that the two actors have been portraying on the air since 2021. M6 deny everythingmood incompatibility” Or “anger”.
To justify its decision, the channel invokes, in an article published by “TV Mag”, which revealed the information on July 19, 2024, a “reduction in the number of couples“and one”editorial development” of the series. The relationship between the broadcaster, the production and the two actors would be in good shape: “new projects” would be under study “for the two actors”.
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Except that this official version does not correspond to the reality of the facts, according to the actress Claudia Mongumu, one of the first concerned. In “Médiapart”, she denounces, with around ten members of the program, an eviction “brutal” And “policy“.
According to a recording, verified and relayed by the investigative site, the director of fiction at M6 made, in private, another speech far removed from the elements of language served to the press. “In our eyes, you were the least mature couple”he explains to the two actors before continuing: “I find that your couple does not tell something sufficiently universal. It’s less immediate. While your characters are good in themselves, and you as an actor have nothing to reproach yourself for. There’s something that doesn’t work, something where we recognize ourselves less, what“. “Médiapart” specifies that M6 denies having mentioned the lack of universality of the couple.
“Our couple represented something that had been a difficult choice for M6”
“From the start, we had a lot of warnings that our relationship represented something that had been a difficult choice for M6, a risky bet. We heard it several times“, testifies Claudia Mongumu, who plays Louise, a restaurateur of Congolese origin in a relationship with Jalil, a firefighter of Algerian origin.
“When we are told that our relationship is not universal, it is because not only are none of us white, but our origins involve playing scenes, during family reunions for example, with several black and Arab actors. And that’s perhaps a lot for a channel that thinks that not being white means not being universal“, she is indignant.
In the investigation, the actress is surprised by the difference in treatment of her character and sees it as a desire to be invisible. She would have been concerned about her degraded exposure, according to her, in several emails written in recent years that “Médiapart” was able to consult. “We are both quite jaded by the treatment the channel has reserved for us for several months“, wrote, for example, the actress to the deputy director of fiction at M6 in January 2023.
“M6 tried to exclude us from prime time”
“They tried to exclude us from prime time before we demanded to participate”Claudia Mongumu further advances. “We weren’t featured in most of the trailers for the series, and excerpts of our appearances were rarely shared on social media.“, indignant the actress who would have, moreover, filmed a sequence denouncing “the racism of a neighbor” of the couple which would never have been broadcast.
“Not all filmed sequences are broadcast“, retorts M6 to “Médiapart” before adding: “We totally contest such innuendoes which are particularly shocking. Especially when we know the history of the M6 group, its programs, its talents and its leaders.“Médiapart indicates on this subject that”other members of the team interviewed contest any racist bias in this decision, recalling that the program featured a mixed couple for several years (Audrey Lamy and Loup-Denis Elion) and that the channel has just recruited one other (Élodie Poux and Majid Berhila)”.
Finally, regarding the supposedly deliberate invisibility of the couple, the channel’s fiction management rejects this again.totally“these accusations.”They have not been made invisible, on the contrary. They filmed a few fewer episodes like all new couples but we accepted them. The texts show that their origin was not a subject either.“
“The attacks or innuendoes are shameful and slanderous”
After the publication of the investigation by “Médiapart”, M6 again informed Puremedias of his “consternation“.”The attacks or innuendoes are shameful and slanderous. We strongly condemn these denials and would like to comment on them.“, indicated the channel which recalls having been “seduced by the personality and the alchemy between the two actors (who initially did not know each other) and convinced by the different tests” that they had made before joining the series in 2021. “M6 made the choice to select them and integrate them into its flagship series when they were just starting out in the business. A completely different choice could have been made“, she defends herself.
Regarding the communication operation which surrounded the eviction of the two actors this summer, M6 specifies that “At no time do we say that this decision was taken in agreement with the actors“.”We are obviously disappointed to have to stop this couple because we are the first to have believed in them and to place our trust in these actors by exposing them daily at prime time for 3 years. Unfortunately, it is the normal life of a series to see its editorial and its characters evolve. It is never an easy decision and we regret it“.
The channel finally responds at length to the accusations of ‘invisibilization‘ of the actress. “There was never any desire to make this couple invisible“, she retorts before putting forward her own numerical data. “Jalil and Louise are as present or even more present than the other couples in the self-promotion campaign for ‘Scènes de households’ for this fall, with 32 passages in trailers which reached 8.8 million viewers between August 13 and September 3, 2024“.
What about the future of Claudia Mongumu and Ryad Baxx on M6?
“To imply that M6 did not wish to support the couple played by Claudia Mongumu and Ryad Baxx for racial reasons is therefore completely misleading.“, the channel continues.
She recalls that “Scenes of households” has “already highlighted diversity” but also that M6 is the channel where “the representation of people ‘perceived as non-white’ is stronger than on the channel average“, according to the barometer published by the CSA/Arcom in 2022.
M6 and Kabo Family finally confirm their desire to entrust projects to Claudia Mongumu and Ryad Baxx. “Claudia Mongumu will notably have a role in the series ‘Clean’ that we have just filmed (with Alix Poisson, Léonie Simaga and Thaïs Vauquières). Ryad Baxx has a meeting with the channel scheduled for next week“.
