“Quotidien” Production Faces Racism Accusations After Live Performance: Apologizes to Upset Choir Members
After a live performance by the “Star Academy” winner Pierre Garnier on “Quotidien” on Monday night, several members of a gospel group have spoken out against the conditions in which they were received.
“We take this seriously and we apologize to all the people we may have hurt,” a Bangumi executive, the production company behind “Quotidien,” immediately responded to puremédias.com. Since last night, the talk show hosted by Yann Barthès on TMC has been accused of racism by several members of a Parisian gospel group. They were invited to perform live on Pierre Garnier’s latest single, and several participants in the performance have criticized the conditions they were met with on the set.
In a series of tweets seen over 1.2 million times on X, the account Lili_island described the “racism experience” that part of the gospel group endured. According to one choir member, after rehearsing with Pierre Garnier on the “Quotidien” set in the early afternoon, the production asked about forty choir members (out of the hundred present last night) to join a dressing room. “Black bracelets were distributed only to immigrant choir members, specifically to black women and men. When rehearsals ended, a production member asked all those wearing a black bracelet to raise their hands and leave the set to go to a room. The non-racially marked choir members remained on the set,” she described.
Facing multiple testimonies on X, Bangumi regrets a “huge misunderstanding.” According to an employee of the audiovisual production company who firmly refutes the racism accusations, a “communication error” is at the root of the issue.
“It’s a huge production misunderstanding. A few weeks ago, we invited Pierre Garnier for a live performance. As always, we asked record labels to work on a special performance. Sony suggested that a 100-person choir come and sing the chorus with Pierre Garnier. We liked the idea, so we accepted. Sony then found this gospel group from the Paris region,” our source explained.
Yesterday afternoon, about a hundred choir members arrived on the “Quotidien” set to rehearse with the “Star Academy” singer. “We probably underestimated the management of such a large crowd in the organizational mechanics of a daily show where everything is finely tuned with Yann’s (Barthès) rehearsals at 5 p.m., those of the columnists at 6 p.m., etc.,” the producer admitted before continuing: “The deal from the beginning with Sony was to keep a part of the gospel group in the audience, plus the 50 pre-booked spectators we decided to keep.”
A “big misunderstanding” followed. The production did ask about forty choir members to wait for Pierre Garnier’s performance in a dressing room, as is the case “every Friday for live performances on ‘Quotidien’.” “We did not select or count anyone. I find it disturbing to imagine that we could have sorted people by race.”
There was a mishap in managing the gospel group between Bangumi, Sony, the company that manages the audience, and the gospel direction. No one really explained to the choir members how a TV shoot works and that they would have to wait for hours in a dressing room where, indeed, there are no windows as in all the show’s dressing rooms since we film underground.”
Aware of having offended part of the gospel group, Bangumi’s management “will call the members whose contact information we have to apologize. If several were hurt, it’s because it’s a reality, they were truly hurt. So we take this very seriously, and we will apologize to them. In no way is this racism. It’s terrible for us to imagine that people could think that of the ‘Quotidien’ teams.”