Georges Pernoud in 2004, in front of the Thalassa barge-studio moored on the quai de Javel (Paris 15th).
-
PIERRE VERDY / AFP
Journalist Georges Pernoud died this Sunday at the age of 73.
In 1975, on FR3 (ex-France 3), he launched the
Thalassa program
which he presented until 2017.
Thalassa
, “the magazine of the sea”, has raised awareness among generations of television viewers about environmental issues.
The lines are outlined in white on a blue background.
The fish turns into a sailboat.
The sailboat turns into a shell.
The shell becomes a compass rose.
The compass rose turns into a crab.
The crab takes the form of a diving helmet.
These metamorphoses rocked by the music of Guy Pedersen are part of the collective memory of French television.
This
Thalassa
credits
, updated over the years, has left its mark on generations of television viewers.
It is almost as inseparable from the "magazine of the sea" as Georges Pernoud, its creator, who died this Sunday at the age of 73, who animated it for the time of 1,704 issues on France 3.
When the latter left the controls of the show in 2017, she gradually lost her aura, despite the involvement of Fanny Agostini who succeeded her for a time.
Since February 2020,
Thalassa
has been placed in a discreet box of the program schedule of the third channel, on Sunday afternoon, without any presenter.
If the adage is to say "No one is irreplaceable", it would seem irrelevant in this case.
A passion born of a sailing race
Paradoxically, Georges Pernoud was not intended to be the seafaring animator he has become in the eyes of the public.
At first, his thing was the mountains.
But as Renaud sang in 1983, "It's not the man who takes the sea, it's the sea that takes the man".
History does not say if it was a Tuesday, but Georges Pernoud, who worked as a cameraman since 1968, lived his epiphany by covering, in 1973, the Whitebread Round The World, a sailing race around the world - today called The Ocean Race.
Two years later, then deputy editor-in-chief in charge of the image of the FR3 channel, which had just been created, he proposed a concept for a magazine on the sea. Project validated.
He owes the name of the program to his Hellenist father: “Thalassa” means “sea”, “ocean” in ancient Greek.
The first issue of what will become one of the longest-lived programs in the French audiovisual landscape is broadcast on September 27, 1975. It lasts half an hour and Georges Pernoud only intervenes in voice-over.
It was not until January 4, 1980 that he appeared on the screen.
First monthly,
Thalassa
became weekly in 1989 at the same time that it was honored in prime time.
She then found her cruising speed, with constant success, receiving two Albert-Londres awards, while, in the meantime, FR3 became France 3.
" Stand-in ".
At the turn of the 2000s, the show moved into a barge moored on the Seine, not far from the headquarters of France Télévisions.
In 2004, she embarked on a tour de France by schooner, docking each week in a different port.
The decline will begin in the early 2010s.
Thalassa
is no longer broadcast three Fridays out of four from 2011, then once a month from 2016.
Behind the scenes, tensions are intensifying.
“Wear and tear, loss of meaning, disempowerment of journalists: the editorial staff is exhausted, disoriented, idle.
She went into the "Bore out" phase (syndrome of professional exhaustion by boredom) with the organization of a technical unemployment which does not speak its name ", the SNJ (National Union of Journalists) was alarmed seven years ago. ) from France Télévisions.
At the time, Julien Lepers had just been removed from
Questions for a champion
and
30 Million friends
to be deleted from the air.
Thalassa's
teams
dreaded being next on the list.
This was not completely the case, but Georges Pernoud left the ship, both literally and figuratively, tired of undergoing the programming changes and believing that
Thalassa
had become "a stopgap".
He presented a final number, on June 30, 2017, live from Saint-Malo.
A few months earlier, in April, the chain announced his departure "retired" in a statement after greeting "the professionalism and enthusiasm of Georges Pernoud which for forty years has led to the drafting of
Thalassa
reports and quality surveys on the world of the sea and those who make a living from it ”.
Whether it is to show the activity of fishermen, to embark on the Route du Rhum or to evoke the rescues of migrants, the program tackled "all areas on a blue background", liked to say the facilitator.
Ecological awareness
This Monday, political figures of all stripes reacted to the announcement of the death of Georges Pernoud.
Several refer to the environmental dimension of
Thalassa
.
"For forty years, Georges Pernoud has contributed a lot to ecological awareness", declared Eric Piolle, the ecological mayor of Grenoble, while Emmanuel Macron tweeted: "To our generation, today, to protect this nature which he taught us to know.
"
Georges Pernoud had also retained another philosophy from his offshore experience.
"The sea is another world where the only things that matter are to float and move forward," he told AFP.
A world where absurd things become very important, where the day lasts 24 hours.
"A school of pragmatism and
Carpe Diem
where it is appropriate to wish each other the best, saying, as he liked to do to take leave of the viewers:" Good wind
!
"
Media
Macron pays tribute to Georges Pernoud and "his love of the sea"
Television
Georges Pernoud, historical presenter of "Thalassa", died
Environment
Media
Sea
Television
France 3