France 2 is dressing up. This Tuesday, from 9:10 p.m., the public channel will offer its viewers the opportunity to move on to 2025 with a new “Grande Soirée du 31 de Paris”. On the menu: music, dance and circus, without forgetting the unmissable midnight fireworks display.
Filmed like last year live from the Champs-Élysées, the three-and-a-half hour television show cooked up by Électron Libre Productions will once again be hosted by Stéphane Bern. Objective claimed: to bring a spectacular end to a year marked in particular by the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris, broadcast this summer on the same channel.
“We want a program that is even more eventful than last year,” explains Stéphane Sitbon-Gomez, the program director of France Télévisions, hoping that the images of the 31st festivities in the capital will shine “all over the world”. His assistant in charge of variety, Alexandra Redde-Amiel, also wishes to point out that this event allows people spending New Year’s Eve “alone” to participate in the party via their television screen. “With this show, we want to add sparkle to people’s lives,” she sums up, with a nod to the famous line from comedian Inès Reg.
Gims, David Hallyday, Kendji Girac, Amir, Eddy de Pretto…
Mission succeeded in 2023. With 4.2 million viewers in front of their television sets, or 30.3% of the public, the France 2 show then defeated “Le Grand Bêtisier du 31” by Karine Ferri and Christophe Beaugrand on TF 1 and its 2.4 million curious people. Entertainment that the headlines will focus on again this year.
Despite a decreasing budget due to restrictions, France 2 wants to continue to raise the bar and offer something for all tastes. This Tuesday’s show will open with “an exceptional array of 50 dancers from the Moulin-Rouge at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe,” warns producer Michael Kazandjian. A host of artists will then parade on the Champs-Élysées stage in front of nearly 1 million spectators.
Among them: Gims, David Hallyday, and even Chimène Badi accompanied for the occasion by 100 singers. Performances by Kendji Girac, Jenifer, Michel Fugain, Chico et les Gypsies, Amir, and even Eddy de Pretto are also expected in several emblematic places in the capital such as the Petit Palais or the Concorde.
To complete the show, the companies of Cirque Phénix and Folies Gruss will also offer acts. At 11:50 p.m., the organizers will finally offer ten minutes of a 3D video mapping show. Presented as “epic”, the latter will evoke the metamorphoses of Paris, before the start of the traditional fireworks display at the Arc de Triomphe. Or ten minutes of magic to say goodbye to 2024 in the most beautiful way.