- The Favorite Village of the French is elected, for the tenth time, by the votes of the public, Wednesday evening on France 3.
- The voting system seems to benefit certain regions.
- The impact of the prize list on tourism makes it difficult to change the voting system.
The best soups are made in old pots, it seems. And in the old villages that we make the winners of the game of France 3? Not that easy. In any case, for its tenth edition, The Favorite Village of the French has chosen continuity.
Eight years after its launch, the program presented by Stéphane Bern, broadcast Wednesday evening, changes nothing in its formula. After all, the audience is there (around 2.5 million viewers over the past five years). And yet, every year some critics return. In particular on the public voting system ...
The big eat the little
The votes of the public, either live or before the show, decide the winner. However, unlike Eurovision where you cannot vote for the candidate of your country, The favorite village of the French encourages on the contrary to mobilize the inhabitants of each region. And since 2016 and the first edition with a reduced number of candidates (to stick to the number of new regions merged), certain regions know better than others how to fare well.
There is thus defeatism on the side of “small regions”, those which have not merged (like Pays-de-la-Loire) or have fewer inhabitants (like Corsica) and find themselves fairly mechanically disadvantaged. Thus, on the average of the last four editions, Corsica comes in eleventh position ... Far from its reputation as an island of beauty.
Nobody likes Charente-Maritime
But there is another explanation for the classification of villages: chauvinism. Ile-de-France, however the most populated region of France, has never really shone. It has even come in last place twice in the past four years. On the contrary, regions like Grand-Est and Brittany concentrate most of the victories and places of honor, with the Hauts-de-France. If we remove the two victories of villages in Midi-Pyrénées, which occurred in the prehistory of the show in 2012 and 2014, the regions of the south of France are still left behind.
At Morgane Productions, which has produced the show since its inception, this phenomenon is called the "Miss France syndrome". As with the TF1 competition, beauty and charm are not everything ... "Alsatians and Bretons are the strongest, the best mobilized," explained Gérard Pont, producer of the show. There is really a notion of people at home which means that they can support a village in their region. In the other regions the steeple spirit is stronger. In short, a Breton from Perros-Guirec can vote for a village in the Gulf of Morbihan, but no one wants to vote for a village in the Ile-de-France, and the Landais laugh at the charm of a village in Charente-Maritime.
Intra-regional competition
Another bone of contention: precisely the new regions. Within the regions, five years after the reform, some still make the difference between villages from the old regions. Thus, in Hauts-de-France, we note with a touch of bitterness that, for the second time in a row, it is a Picardy village which will represent the region, and not a village in the North or in Pas-de- Calais…
“It takes a balance within the regions, it's complicated, admits Stéphane Bern. It cannot always be the same department, nor the same type of village. »Sea, countryside, mountain… You need variety. After all, The Favorite Village of the French is above all a TV show and viewers must get their money's worth.
A spotlight
Money is precisely at the center of attention. In ten editions, the winners have all seen the gigantic impact of the program on their income from tourism. Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue, 2019 winner, saved its tourist season, devastated by the coronavirus crisis, thanks to the impact of the show. Thus, it becomes difficult to change the rules of the game from now on. At most, the production could agree to increase the number of candidate villages, for more media exhibitions…
But if the tourist impact is enormous for the winner, it is frankly less for the others. 20 Minute has contacted second or third place villages in the past five years. Each time, the observation is identical: “We had a small local effect, people from the region come a little for the day, but that's about it. "Stéphane Bern is more optimistic:" It is a great spotlight. And the program has an impact on the surroundings of the villages presented too! In ten editions, we have created an ideal card for the holidays of French people looking for exceptional villages. "
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- Heritage
- Stéphane Bern
- The favorite village of the French
- Television
- France 3