“Numbers and letters”: a former candidate and a teacher to replace the mainstays of the game

A former candidate, Stéphane Crosnier, and a school teacher, Blandine Maire, will replace Bertrand Renard and Arielle Boulin-Prat as arbitrators for the numbers and letters After the controversial departure of these two figures from the program, producer Patrice Laffont announced to Television 7 days Tuesday.

Stéphane Crosnier “is a very charismatic former candidate, prodigious in numbers. He was brilliant in many Numbers and Letters tournaments. But he also has a very good sense of television since he worked as a copywriter in sports director in BFM-TV Y CMR sportsPatrice Laffont explained.

Blandine Maire is a “small section teacher”. In addition, she “is a lawyer and has also worked on television as a journalist (…) with Olivier Minne or in Fort Boyard”, declared the producer.

And to add: “With the arrival of Blandine Maire and Stéphane Crosnier, the animation will be perhaps a bit more trio, in a less mechanical way, even if Laurent Romejko remains the master of the game.”

Replaced from September 17

After a France Télévisions manager made the announcement in the newspaper Le Parisien/Today in FranceBertrand Renard and Arielle Boulin-Prat had denounced a “forced and forced” exit after 47 years and 36 years respectively of presence in this game with exceptional longevity (half a century on the clock).

They will air for the last time on the weekend of September 10-11, during the broadcast of the last numbers recorded with them, and will be replaced on screen by their successors from September 17. The main presenter of the match broadcast by France 3, Laurent Romejko, will continue in this position that he has held since 1992.

Broadcast on weekends

The season that opens marks a revolution for the program: before every day, now it will only be broadcast on weekends, at 17:15, with some changes to bring “a little more suspense”, according to Patrice Laffont.

“Saturdays and Sundays are always more complicated. For our audience, which is a little older, Saturdays are often the day people get away. I still think that at the end of fifty years, the show had a reason.” to disappear. But France Télévisions wanted to keep the brand, “said the producer, himself a presenter of the game from 1972 to 1989.