Paris (AFP)

With the departure of comedian Nicolas Canteloup, thanked after 16 years on the air, Europe 1 separates from yet another emblematic voice that had scratched the new main shareholder of the radio, businessman Vincent Bolloré on the airwaves. .

"Nicolas Canteloup and Europe 1 it's over," announced Thursday on Twitter the producer of the imitator, Jean-Marc Dumontet.

"We did not know on July 2 that we would accomplish our last + review of almost + on Europe 1", specifies his team in a text relayed on the same network.

"We will therefore leave Europe 1, our house where we have been so free and happy", indicates the team of "La revue de près", the column of Canteloup.

"For 16 years (16 years!) We will have experienced the privilege of borrowing cross voices in a leading news media".

"The listeners will be missed. All the teams with whom we have shared so much will be missed. We would hate that Europe 1 is missing in its history", concludes the text, referring to the planned merger of the radio with the news channel continuously CNews.

The two media share the same main shareholder, Vincent Bolloré.

Contacted by AFP, the management of Europe 1 confirmed, without commenting, the departure of Canteloup who officiated in the morning around 08:45.

The future of Nicolas Canteloup within the station had been the subject of speculation since the historic five-day strike in June, a strike motivated by the dismissal of a reporter and by the fear of a transformation of the radio into "media of opinion" according to the mergers with the news channel of the Canal + group.

Without stopping work, the imitator, showcase of the radio, had supported the movement during caustic chronicles.

He had also made fun of Eric Zemmour, head of poster of CNews.

For the last of the season, he renamed Europe 1 to “CNews Radio” and mocked “the great Breton captain” Bolloré.

- Cascade departures -

Vincent Bolloré "does not like at all" humor about himself or the entities of his group, recently reported to AFP a voice that had just landed from the radio.

This is evidenced by the dismissal at the end of November of the comedian Sébastien Thoen, disembarked from Canal + for having parodied in a sketch the show hosted by Pascal Praud on CNews (whose parent company Canal + is owned by Vivendi, controlled by Bolloré).

The billionaire occupies a position of strength within the Lagardère group, which owns Europe 1. Arnaud Lagardère lost absolute control of the group inherited from his father following a legal transformation at the end of June.

In addition to a strong right-wing of the Europe 1 line, employees fear Vincent Bolloré's management methods.

Sébastien Thoen's departure from Canal + was followed by a big clean-up in the sports department of the encrypted channel.

At Europe 1 too, departures have followed one another in recent weeks: Patrick Cohen, Pascale Clark, Anne Roumanoff, Bertrand Chameroy, Matthieu Belliard, Emilie Mazoyer, Wendy Bouchard etc.

For several years, the audiences of what was one of the first radio stations in France have been crumbling and display only 4.3% of cumulative audience, according to the latest figures from Médiamétrie (against 11.3% for France Inter and 10% for RTL, the two other large generalist radios).

At the start of the school year, Dimitri Pavlenko, defector of Radio Classique and teammate of Eric Zemmour in "Face à l'Info" on CNews, will be in charge of the morning.

Sonia Mabrouk will take over "Le Grand Rendez-vous" on Sunday politics in place of Michaël Darmon.

Le Parisien also referred to the arrivals of CNews journalists, Romain Desarbres and Thomas Lequertier, alongside Canal + defectors Laurie Cholewa and Mouloud Achour.

© 2021 AFP