Philippe Gougler, those who love him will take his “trains like no other”

FRANCE 5 – THURSDAY JULY 8 – 8.50 P.M. – MAGAZINE

Whether it is the aerial view of the former Mauritanian ore carrier, one of the longest trains in the world, in the middle of an ocher desert, in the first episode, or the orchestrated, almost military march of some twenty salt workers carrying a rail in the salt flats of Croatia (episode 2), in a few seconds, the viewer finds himself far, very far from his daily life.

“Trains like no other” is entering its eleventh summer season. Eight unreleased tracks broadcast in prime time and each followed by a rerun. With the same familiar credits that get stuck on the inside window of a wagon, and the smiling – always smiling! – Philippe Gougler, looking through this window on the world. A longevity that questions at least as much as the good humor of the host-traveler.

The man also presents the program “Should not dream” since 2014, in alternation once in three on France 3, and animates all summer on Europe 1 “Et si on departait? », A daily from 11 am to noon. Not enough to stress Philippe Gougler. “Yes, it’s huge, it changes a life! “, he admits, during a meeting with The world, June 30, by evoking the eight months of shooting per year, only for “Trains”. But “I barely stay ten days in place: ten days in Paris and I have to leave! ”

“I fought against myself”

This frenetic rhythm was set up gradually, concentrically, over a career that began after studying computer science and astronomy, at Radio France Besançon, the city where he was born, in 1965. And always in the same fashion operative: establishing a relationship with the other, “The great pleasure of this job”. An intimate fight for the person concerned: “Kid, I was extremely shy. Until I was 15, I didn’t say hello to my neighbors. We saw few people, we didn’t go out a lot. The only way I could get away was television: a window on the world, to people who could do incredible things. I struggled against myself. “

This fear exceeded, he has since communicated with the whole world. And in fact to benefit the greatest number thanks to television. “If you have a curiosity without a priori towards the other, benevolent, it is not a problem”, he assumes. Not without knowing that this benevolence can be reproached to him. Thus, in the film on Mauritania, he does not speak of the corruption which is rife in the country, nor of the former president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, imprisoned in June. In the episode on Croatia, broadcast on July 15, he approaches the Yugoslav conflict a little more openly with a passenger from Belgrade-Zagreb.

Philippe Gougler: “The world of travel is a small environment. We operate through networks, in trust, as in a family ”

“Indeed, I am not talking about the difficulties associated with a diet, admits the journalist. That doesn’t mean I can’t see them, I have eyes! I talk about it with colleagues who deal with these subjects. But I present an escape magazine, I’m here to show that there are beautiful things everywhere, that people manage to move forward despite everything, that’s what fascinates me. “

The objective of “Trains” is above all to make people want to travel. This is why Philippe Gougler is not a slayer of mass tourism either, even if he is aware that it must be regulated: “Everyone has the right to have their share of the world. ” On the other hand, “When you turn an entire city into an Airbnb, it’s not the tourists’ fault. And there, there may be things to do ”.

“A small environment”

While waiting for the rules of world tourism to evolve, he concentrates on his profession, which he shares with three teams of three professionals, who follow him in shifts, and on site with fixers. These are essential, among other things, in the choice of destinations. They are often the ones who alert him upstream. “The world of travel is a small environment. We operate in networks, in trust, as in a family. “ Then the proposals are discussed with the group, before being launched, sometimes two to three years in advance, to give themselves time to obtain the agreement of the local authorities, or to change location.

Of course, some countries are automatically banned: those where the railroad is absent, such as Iceland and Greenland. Others, on the other hand, like Colombia (broadcast on July 22), admittedly have almost no more trains, but have kept their tracks on which they circulate a whole bunch of bizarre machines, cobbled-together railcars, mopeds, adapted motorcycles … “A nugget” for Philippe Gougler, to the point of having devoted two episodes to this Latin American country where European and American railway companies ensured the heyday of the train in the 19th century^e century, in order to transport local productions to the main ports of the country, before it was abandoned in the XX^e century in favor of roads, easier to maintain in this mountainous country with lush vegetation.

It is also not necessary to go far to achieve a good number, underlines the eternal traveler. The one on Switzerland, rebroadcast this summer, is one of his favorites. Scarcely further away, Croatia combines postcard tourist landscapes with timeless encounters, such as Malena, an inhabitant who fell in love with… a stork, which he drives around in his car. Also more modern, the sequence passed with followers of the Parcours – urban climbing – and drone pilots who have taken over the abandoned buildings of a former communist school in the suburbs of Zagreb.

Philippe Gougler claims this eclecticism. So when we ask him if he intends to take these “trains like no other” for a long time… “I don’t ask myself the question. I like doing this job and the show has found its audience, it seems. ” The audience had 1.5 million viewers in 2020, similar to 2019, a mixed audience of three quarters over the age of 60, according to the channel.

The small documentary environment is a world apart in the PAF, less in the flow of information and therefore more protected; until when ? “We’re all worried. We all know that anything can stop overnight. ” Like any train …