Three days after formalizing his departure from France 2, Laurent Ruquier announced to the Parisian, Saturday July 15, that he would join BFM-TV from October. He will host the news segment from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., alongside Julie Hammett.
“Laurent Ruquier joins the first news channel in France to host a new meeting with Julie Hammett by his side, Monday to Thursday from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m. “, detailed BFM-TV in a press release. Julie Hammett is a journalist who for her part comes from LCI, after ten years in the editorial staff of the TF1 group.
At Parisian, the 60-year-old host reveals that he had “the choice” between a slice of information on LCI or on BFM-TV. “I made [the choice] of the big challenge, the most exposed channel… and friendship,” he says. Laurent Ruquier is a longtime friend of Marc-Olivier Fogiel, boss of BFM-TV. “Laurent makes the choice of passion, he, the info enthusiast who spends hours and hours reading the press, listening to the radio and TV,” commented Mr. Fogiel.
Also quoted in the press release, Laurent Ruquier specified that the program would consist of “dealing with and debating information, both leaving room for live coverage but also taking the time to reflect on events about which we have sometimes tend to react too quickly without bringing the necessary nuances”.
“I have always aimed to listen to the multiplicity of opinions while trying to bring my point of view, sometimes singular, fighting in my own way against the subjectivity of activism. I will continue to do so,” he added.
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BFM-TV does not currently have a strong program in this time slot, where it broadcasts news bulletins, before documentaries or special programs at 8:50 p.m. installed that are the television news of the first two national channels, which bring together three to seven million viewers each.
The former public service host reiterated that he only learned “at the end of June that we were removing [le] from prime time shows”, “Les Grosses Têtes” and “Les Enfants de la télé”. “When you feel that you are no longer wanted, you have to look elsewhere”, asserts the one who will have devoted more than twenty years to the chains of the public service.
On Wednesday, Laurent Ruquier announced his departure from France 2 on Instagram after twenty-three seasons on public service, believing he no longer had the “trust” of “the management of the channel” and wishing “to think about other horizons”.
An emblematic figure of public service, Laurent Ruquier was in charge of the second parts of the evening on Saturdays on France 2 from 2006 to 2022, the year in which he left his place to Léa Salamé, who had joined him in 2021 to co-present “We are en direct”, a successor program to “On n’est pas couche”. He had given up this time slot in the summer of 2022, frustrated by the co-hosting.
The host was also at the helm of the daily newspapers “We tried everything” for seven years, and “We only ask to laugh about it” for two seasons. He will continue to host “Les Grosses Têtes” for a tenth season on RTL at the start of the school year.
