Laurent Debesse

French journalist Laurent Debesse is Deputy Editor-in-Chief at France Télévisions. Within the French public broadcasting sector, he began his career by presenting a visionary weather program, innovative both in its content and its format, using a virtual studio to address climate change long before it became a mainstream issue. After hosting infotainment programs and directing a documentary for Canal+, he went on to anchor television news broadcasts before joining France's international public broadcasting service. For two decades, he was one of the leading faces of the French-language television network TV5Monde. There, he created new long-form news formats featuring in-depth interviews with a diverse range of guests from the publishing world. Under the direction of sociologist and researcher Michel Dorais, he is one of the co-authors of the collective work Le savoir engagé. Attentive to and curious about the evolution of major societal issues, he has produced content on the environment (Énergie présidentielle, Le tour du littoral à la nage) and gender equality (La table à repasser), among other topics. He also advocates for the idea that local and global news are complementary rather than competing. In the age of social media and artificial intelligence, he reminds us that informing and communicating differ in one non-negotiable respect: informing requires the presentation of differing viewpoints, while communication allows complete freedom in shaping a narrative. Laurent Debesse holds a Master's degree in Communication and Marketing from Sup de Pub and a BTS diploma from Novancia, the Paris Chamber of Commerce business school. An amateur musician, he also studied at the renowned Cours Florent theatre school in Paris under the direction of Joséphine Derenne.