After the interview with Eric Zemmour, Gilles Bouleau returned to the insults he suffered by the candidate for the 2022 presidential election. JDD, Gilles Bouleau showed himself, as usual, little affected by the controversy.
On November 30, Eric Zemmour announced his candidacy with great fanfare. And to establish his posture as a candidate, the polemicist had gone, with his torso bulging, to the plateau of 20 hours of TF1. In front of him, Gilles Bouleau, journalist of the channel, presenter of the section and well known for not falling into the traps of politicians. And what had to happen, happened. That day, the interview goes badly between the two men. Eric Zemmour is confronted with his contradictions by Gilles Bouleau, right in his boots. Following the interview, while he is still in the corridors of the chain, Eric Zemmour loses his temper. The presidential candidate often resorts to insulting when injured and losing his nerves. He then accuses Gilles Bouleau of having led a “prosecutor interview“ before calling him an elegant “asshole“.
This Sunday, January 9, Gilles Bouleau returned to this episode in the columns of Sunday Newspaper. “We can always do differently, but this is one of the interviews on which I worked the longest upstream, began the reporter. It was the first time that I had met him. Therefore, I had no affect towards him and no particular reason, if there was one, to take him in dislike.“
No cronyism with politicians
On the interview charges of “attorney“, Gilles Bouleau defends himself : “I believe I asked questions that evening that any other journalist would have asked. And I do not think that Eric Zemmour, who had made a middle finger two days earlier, could be surprised that I broached the subject. As for his program, I did not forbid him at any time to develop it.“
What to make the king of the info of TF1 tremble? Not at all. With his legendary phlegm, Gilles Bouleau insisted that the insults had not touched him. Far from there. “It’s not so bad. I have known everything in political interviews. Bernard Tapie who smashes the door of the studio, François Fillon who leaves him very unhappy in January 2017, like Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Mélenchon. This is the life of this profession, it takes composure, hindsight and a healthy distance too : politicians, I hardly ever see them outside my set. And when I have lunch with them, which is rare, it is with the journalists of the political service“, he assured the JDD. The page is turned.