PARIS — After interviewing prime politicians 4 nights per week on primetime TV, Léa Salamé will go residence to at least one — in a significant check case of France’s tolerance for relationships between journalists and the politicians they cowl.
From Monday, 45-year-old Salamé will host one in every of France’s most prestigious information reveals, grilling the nation’s leaders within the 8 p.m. slot on the general public broadcaster.
This new function has introduced renewed scrutiny of her relationship with Socialist and Democrat MEP Raphaël Glucksmann, a probable presidential candidate in 2027. The 2 have been collectively for a decade.
In June, Salamé was tapped to exchange Anne-Sophie Lapix to show across the fortunes of 20 Heures, which commonly trails its predominant competitor, personal broadcaster TF1’s newscast on the identical time.
With the couple on the peak of their respective careers, their partnership might be squarely within the public eye over any potential conflicts of curiosity. Loads of French politicians have married members of the media, however a French president and a star anchor dwelling beneath the roof of the Elysée Palace can be a primary.
“Working a information program means providing an interpretation of occasions and society with a hierarchy of knowledge and political interviews. I ponder how this combine will work within the curiosity of public service,” Aymeric Caron, a former Salamé colleague-turned-politician, mentioned in an interview with the gossip journal Gala.
A plan … for now
Earlier than her appointment, Salamé and Glucksmann had constructed a seemingly secure firewall between their private {and professional} lives.
He led the center-left Socialist Get together’s checklist previously two European elections whereas she co-hosted public radio France Inter’s morning information present, which beneath her stewardship gained greater than one million new listeners regardless of an general drop in radio audiences.
When it got here time for Glucksmann to marketing campaign, Salamé recused herself from protection of the competition. She has mentioned she would do the identical if Glucksmann ran for president, and her new boss, France Télévisions chief government Delphine Ernotte, has publicly backed that plan.
“When he was campaigning for the European elections, she took a again seat. The nice Léa Salamé can’t be summed up solely by her associate,” Ernotte instructed the favored TV program “Quotidien.”
Glucksmann’s presidential ambitions are an open secret. The Europhile chief — typically perceived as one of the crucial centrist figures on the French left — has repeatedly refused in interviews to rule out a 2027 run.
Polling reveals Glucksmann is a long-shot — whereas Salamé is already established on the prime in her subject — however the contest remains to be greater than a yr away. With President Emmanuel Macron constitutionally barred from operating and his far-right rival Marine Le Pen dealing with authorized troubles that would forestall her from mounting a fourth bid for the presidency, the sphere is open.
At a press convention in June, Glucksmann dismissed accusations that Salamé confronted a battle of curiosity in her new submit and leaned into his associate’s work as an energetic supporter of feminine empowerment.
“We’re in 2025 — I wouldn’t have imagined telling her she ought to hand over one thing that’s essential to her profession. Issues are clear, very clear,” he mentioned. “If there’s a candidacy in a nationwide election, the query might be raised and handled transparently to keep away from any battle of curiosity.”
Salamé struck the same tone in an interview with La Tribune du Dimanche that very same month.
“My relationship isn’t any secret, however we maintain our actions very separate. From Emmanuel Macron to Marine Le Pen, Bruno Retailleau, Édouard Philippe and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, I by no means felt of their eyes that they noticed me as ‘the spouse,'” she mentioned.
The French political class has largely stayed silent in terms of the pair. That is, in spite of everything, a rustic the place adultery scandals hardly ever trigger lasting political harm. A journalist–politician partnership can appear tame by comparability.
It’s additionally removed from the primary case of its variety. Salamé’s former cohost Thomas Sotto quickly stepped away from reporting on politics throughout the 2022 presidential marketing campaign following studies he was in a relationship with Mayada Boulos, the communications chief for the prime minister on the time, Jean Castex.
Within the Nineties, former Prime Minister Alain Juppé and former Financial system Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn had been each married to journalists. Isabelle Juppé had lined her husband’s personal political get together for La Croix however left journalism throughout her husband’s premiership. Strauss-Kahn’s spouse, the distinguished journalist Anne Sinclair, paused her tv present on TF1 whereas retaining a management function with the channel. She then returned to reporting however prevented French political protection till after her separation from Strauss-Kahn.
Extra just lately, Le Monde’s Ivanne Trippenbach modified her beat from politics when her associate Rayan Nezzar grew to become an adviser to then-Prime Minister Gabriel Attal.
Such a transfer by Salamé doesn’t seem imminent. By not formally declaring his intention to run for president, Glucksmann has successfully allowed the couple to current any battle of curiosity as hypothetical, at the least for now.
That, after all, is simply a part of the story. He might be an energetic pressure in center-left politics, no matter occurs within the presidential contest.
When French lawmakers return to work subsequent month to debate Prime Minister François Bayrou’s austere price range and put together for key municipal elections subsequent yr, Glucksmann might be working to lift the affect of his his center-left Place Publique get together, simply as Salamé presents the largest tales of the day.