In “Scènes de Ménage”, the departure of Louise and Jalil at the heart of a Mediapart investigation

ENTERTAINMENT – Every evening, an average of 3 million French people follow the adventures of Raymond, Liliane, José, Camille, Philippe and the others on M6. Those of Louise and Jalil, a couple who joined Scenes from a Household in 2021, will nevertheless soon come to an end. If their departure had been revealed this summer, an investigation by our colleagues at Mediapart reveals the behind the scenes.

According to the article on the investigative website published this Thursday, September 26, the departure of Claudia Mongumu and Ryad Baxx is, first of all, not the result of their will. The two actors had initially committed for a long period, couples in domestic scenes usually having a longevity of at least a decade.

However, the actors learned abruptly on July 3 that filming was stopping for them overnight, reveals Mediapart. Communication from M6 and the production company Kabo Family, which produces Domestic Scenes, then asked them to keep this news secret, while promising them “ other projects “.

In anticipation of a leak to the media, a fake press release was even written in their name, in which they declared in particular: “We have decided to stop the series to work on other projects.” A statement that both actors refused to sign.

Still according to MediapartM6, a few days later, took the lead in an investigation into the Parisian by “offering” the information to TV Mag. ” No incompatibility of mood or anger ” at the origin of the departures, we can read in the article in question… in which the two actors are however not interviewed. The argument put forward publicly is that of ” to develop “Scènes de ménages” editorially by reducing the number of couples in the series.”

A couple “not universal enough”

Behind the scenes, however, the reason would be quite different. During a meeting in which Mediapart obtained the recordings, a producer from Kabo Family, Stéphane Moatti, and the director of fiction for the M6 ​​group, Quentin de Revel, explained to the two actors that their ” couple does not tell something universal enough” and that the viewers did not “identified with them”. The two officials even partly blame them for the drop in the series’ audience figures.

According to several testimonies gathered by our colleagues and that of the actress herself, this question of lack “of universality” actually hides a racist background. Claudia Mongumu explains to Mediapart: ” Not only are none of us white, but our backgrounds mean that we have to play scenes, at family gatherings for example, with several black and Arab actors. And that may be a lot for a network that thinks that not being white means not being universal.” Accusations that M6 management denies.

Louise and Jalil “invisibilized”

Several people working on the series consider Mediapart that the couple’s Algerian and Congolese origins have actually been problematic for the channel since the beginning. And that they have even led to its invisibility, for example largely excluding it from promotional elements. We weren’t in most trailers, and clips of our appearances were rarely shared on social media. So how could the public connect with our characters? asks Claudia Mongumu. A situation that the two actors are said to have highlighted several times, starting in 2022 by emails, messages and via their press officers.

Louise and Jalil will continue to appear in Scenes from a Household for several months, with many sequences having already been filmed. Christine and Gilbert, played by Fanny Cottençon and Didier Bénureau, will also leave at the end of the season and will be replaced by Élodie Poux and Majid Berhila.

M6 is rightly putting forward the arrival of a “racialized” actor or recalling the longevity of the couple made up of Audrey Lamy and Loup-Denis Elion to deny accusations of racism. But for Claudia Mongumu, the argument does not hold: “With an exclusively racialized couple, the narrative is not at all the same,” she emphasizes to Mediapart.

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