I always have a bit of carnival nostalgia this time of year. In the Caribbean or in New Orleans, where I’ve already partied, the big party goes on for weeks while we’re freezing and spitting at home. Fortunately, there’s Sophie Fouron, who’s bringing a little festive warmth into our homes with the show Life is a carnival, which launches on TV5 on January 20th.
Posted at 7:15am
Few people make feel-good TV like Sophie Fouron, a presenter whose joie de vivre and warmth are contagious. If you haven’t seen Tenir Salon, whose third season begins February 3, on TV5, do yourself a favor because you’re going to see a Quebec we don’t see enough on the small screen. We meet different cultural communities just by sitting in a hair salon. I laughed and cried at every episode. This season, Sophie will debate with a Jewish wig maker (it took her team three years to convince women from the Hasidic community), barbers from Montreal North, or Rwandans from Quebec.
With TV5 broadcasting around the world, Sophie Fouron is more well-known on the street abroad than in Quebec. She started her career late, in her late thirties, so much so that lately she has been a new face on television in her early fifties. “I defy all the statistics,” agrees the man who is also the co-host of the show “Retour vers la culture” on ARTV. The older I get, the more I work. There’s something very calming about that. I really feel like I belong. »
I think we needed these shows and we didn’t know it. Until recently, television in Quebec was made by whites for the “natives.” When I look at the set of La vie est un carnaval, I tell myself that it’s not a show about diversity, it’s a show about Quebec today.
Sophie Fouron
This large set-type program is extremely friendly and unifying, like Sophie Fouron. Every week, in the company of the Edition’s collaborators (Corneille, Tatiana Polevoy, Elkahna Talbi, Kevin Raphaël, Neev, Isabelle Picard and Manuel Tadros), we receive a guest (Boucar Diouf is the first) and talk about a package of things. For example, hear Fabien Cloutier talk about his curiosity when he first saw a black man in Beauce as a child, see Marina Orsini smoking shisha, and learn why plaster lions stand in front of the Italian houses as they make a beeline for the Sukkot holiday make it the sukkah of a Jewish family.
“It’s like being in a Spanish inn, like welcoming my friends at home,” explains the moderator. You come to my house, tell me about yourself, your experiences, your travels, we visit a voodoo priestess in Laval or play cricket with Pakistanis on the West Island. It’s endless, the topics! »
And it goes perfectly with everything she’s done on TV so far. She had to travel around the world at least twice for the Port d’attache and Everyone’s Island programs, but today she’s delighted to let us travel with these people from all walks of life within Quebec, without straying too far from her friend and their children. It runs in the family and mixes with others because she was born to a Quebec mother and a Haitian father. “For me it’s completely normal. As a kid I thought everyone had a black parent, you know! This is my parents’ legacy, this openness of mind and heart that we take for granted. »
Sophie Fouron recently lost her father, Jean-Claude Fouron, who was a great gentleman. Specialist in fetal cardiology at Sainte-Justine Hospital, where he worked until he was 80 years old. She speaks of him, not without emotion, her eyes in the water. “He was an extraordinary man. He was good at everything. A loving being, so present, a role model in his relationship with my mother. He really was the patriarch. When he died we heard testimonies from around the world because he really made Sainte-Justine shine. »
Undoubtedly a matter of generation, we didn’t talk about racism at the Fouron table, even though Sophie knows full well that her father must have experienced it in his life. She also believes, without reproach, that it’s a discussion she missed because she catches up with her today whenever the topic is brought up.
When I was a teenager, being different wasn’t celebrated as much. There’s a big movement now, even a revolution, and that’s what we want: to celebrate our differences.
Sophie Fouron
“It’s interesting because we dissect it a lot, we intellectualize it, we have to catch up, but for my daughters it’s just acquired,” she adds. You grow up there, like Fabien Cloutier’s son. »
Tenir salon and La vie est un carnaval should be programs by the likes of Jean Boulet, who, as Minister for Immigration last campaign, spread falsehoods about immigrants who wouldn’t fit in. “I like that we give people a voice that we don’t often see,” says Sophie Fouron. They need to tell each other, see each other and be heard. We must be interested in our neighbors who have different experiences, different backgrounds. The goal is always to get better all together and not all be in our bubbles. »
Because for Sophie Fouron, happiness is very much about others.
Life is a Carnival, Fridays at 9pm on TV5
Hold Salon 3 at TV5 from February 3rd