Paris (AFP)

Twenty years at TF1 including ten to present the telecrochet "The Voice": Nikos Aliagas tells in an interview with AFP his link to this program, to fame and to his other facets of journalist and photographer.

"I find this game of chance and fate brilliant: each coach writes the story of an artist without knowing it and without knowing him", enthuses the Franco-Greek host at the helm of "The Voice all stars", anniversary season that celebrates ten years of the show.

Broadcast on Saturday evening since September 11, this special edition puts in competition former participants of the program, separated and trained by five "historical coaches": Florent Pagny, Jenifer, Zazie, Mika and Patrick Fiori.

The formula attracted 4.3 million viewers last Saturday, according to data from Médiamétrie.

Opposite, the new telecrochet carried by Nagui on France 2 brought together less than a million.

At the start in 2012, "I did not arrive with a lot of certainty, but with a lot of seriousness", recalls Nikos Aliagas.

"I realized that being with the families (of the candidates) behind, there was another vibration that was just as exciting: the direct support, physical and psychological."

The presenter evokes the pleasure of "seeing talents come into the light" but also the difficulty of finding the right words when a candidate is not selected.

"At that point, it's not a written role, it's my word to be human towards them," he says.

"I need the link", explains the host of 52 years, who took the turn of the entertainment in 2001. So journalist, with one foot in Greece and the other in France at Euronews, Nikos Aliagas is contacted by TF1 for an information magazine ... which will never see the light of day.

Nikos Aliagas, September 16, 2021 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP

Instead, he was offered to present Star Academy.

At TF1, "nobody wanted to go, we left the Loft (Story, the first French reality TV show, editor's note), it smelled a bit of sulfur" but "I accepted" carried by "my little voice".

- "Live intensely" -

Since then, the man - who has also worked in several radio stations - has remained loyal to TF1 where he has become a safe bet at the helm of several shows ("20H C'est Canteloup" from 2011 to 2018, "50 minutes inside "since 2007, among others).

This channel has been "a good school of life because at least things are cash, clear and more human than you think. I have done shows that did not work as well and no one told me. put a gun to his head, "he said.

Nikos Aliagas, September 16, 2021 in Paris JOEL SAGET AFP

However, the presenter ensures not to be fooled by his notoriety: "My starting premise is that all this does not belong to you, you are an intermediary, we lend it to you, and one day we will take it back from you. You quickly become an archive image. But my life is not just about speaking in front of a camera ".

Its engine?

"Live intensely" to brave "the fragility of life" which he says he became aware of from his childhood, an attitude forged by a then failing health and the exile lived by his Greek father.

Hence this need to express "this cultural duality, to create something else, to write, to take pictures, to live outside this light".

"I can do totally different things but if I don't have that, I suffocate," says the presenter who has made a name for himself in photography.

And his hats are multiple: interview of Emmanuel Macron in March for Greek public television, reading of Greek poems at the literary salon of Nancy in early September, exhibition in preparation after a photo-report in Costa Rica ...

As for journalism, if it does not rule out returning to it, "today it is not a priority".

Nikos Aliagas left Europe 1 in 2019 after almost ten years.

But he feels "still a journalist".

"My methodology is purely journalistic, even when I present a variety show or when I photograph".

© 2021 AFP