Paris (AFP)

"We are not lying", the debate show presented by Laurent Ruquier which has been a springboard for many personalities and has experienced its share of clashes and controversies, takes its bow on Saturday evening after fourteen years on France 2.

- The last -

"The talk show that woke up your Saturday evening will turn off the light", announces the chain in a trailer where we find Léa Salamé, former columnist of the show, and the designer Philippe Geluck, a follower of Laurent Ruquier . By their side for this latest show: singer Mister Mat, humorists Jonathan Lambert and Marc-Antoine Le Bret, youtuber Lola Dubini, novelist Saphia Azzeddine, and rapper Chiloo and singer Amir, who will play live.

In a press release, France 2 warmly welcomed "Laurent Ruquier, Catherine Barma (the producer, editor's note), all of the columnists and all the production teams for all these successful years that have enabled the show, over the years, to become every Saturday evening the unmissable meeting of artists, authors, singers, novelists, politicians ".

- Springboard -

"On n'est pas couché", ONPC for friends, was launched in September 2006 to replace "Tout le monde en parle", the hit show by Thierry Ardisson also produced by Catherine Barma. His trademark: expose guests from all backgrounds (politicians, authors, singers ...) to the questions and comments of a duo of columnists who are often very critical. A position that has launched the careers of several personalities such as the polemicist Éric Zemmour, columnist for the first five seasons, first with Michel Polac and then with Éric Naulleau.

Natacha Polony, Audrey Pulvar, Aymeric Caron, Léa Salamé, Vanessa Burggraf, Yann Moix, Christine Angot and Charles Consigny followed one another in these chairs before Laurent Ruquier decided this last season not to take on regular columnists.

The show also launched the careers of comedians such as Florence Foresti, Jonathan Lambert and Nicolas Bedos.

- Controversies -

Another trademark of the show: controversies, fanned by social networks, and clashes between guests and columnists.

From the first season, guests leave the set (Muriel Robin, Bernard Tapie, Doc Gyneco). ONPC thus had trouble starting with the CSA, in particular in 2014, when jokes were exchanged around the possible death of the former animator Soizic Corne (the latter returns to this sequence in a recent book "My death… Quelle laugh ").

The CSA had also pinned France Télévisions after an altercation between the novelist Christine Angot and the ex-deputy EELV Sandrine Rousseau, come to present a book in which she returned on the affair Denis Baupin, former deputy ecologist against whom she had complained for sexual assault (acts not prosecuted because prescribed).

For its detractors, the show is surfing on its controversies to boost its audiences. But after having long exceeded one million viewers, ONPC saw its audience drop to its lowest level in mid-February, at 673,000 viewers, fueling speculation on whether or not to continue in the next school year.

- And after? -

Laurent Ruquier will arrive in September with a new program, "C'est en direct". "It will be the place where the artists will stop on Saturday to discuss", according to France Televisions N ° 2, Takis Candilis.

A new project that will no longer be produced by Catherine Barma but by Philippe Thuillier (producer of the television version of his RTL show "Les grosses tête"), according to Télé Loisirs.

© 2020 AFP