The stars of M6 against the rest of France. This is the program that awaits viewers this Monday, July 25 in Who can beat us? Presented by Éric Antoine, this new entertainment invites six emblematic faces of the channel to team up against 100 candidates. The goal for the public: to be the best in this general knowledge quiz over six rounds in order to win up to 30,000 euros in the grand finale.
Among the show’s six experts, we find Cristina Cordula, Hélène Ségara, Marie Portolano, Philippe Etchebest and Mac Lesggy alongside host Éric Antoine. Their common point: they each have a favorite area. From cooking to entertainment, fashion and music, without forgetting science and sport, these unbeatable know everything about their discipline. Thanks to their expertise, the stars of M6 also play for a viewer who can win the jackpot.
Before knowing who from the public or the experts will win the duel, let’s look at the strengths of each animator as well as their level of education. Starting with the presenter and magician Éric Antoine, one of the key figures of M6. From his debut in the first season of France has incredible talent to Lego Masters, entertainment has no secrets for the comedian.
“Cinema, theatre, humor… the entertainment world has no secrets for him and he intends to prove his ‘incredible talent’!”, Assures Nicolas de Tavernost’s channel in a press release. You might as well make sure that the host has played the game to try to compete with the candidates. “The members of the public are very good players, with a big culture. Sometimes, I did not succeed in answering certain questions. I hit the shame! It’s the end of my career…”, he quipped in the face of our colleagues from Télé Star.
Before becoming an expert in entertainment, Eric Antoine discovered magic at an early age. “At 7-8 years old, I saw a magician’s trick, and I wondered how it worked”, he confided to the Figaro student in 2020. “I started with magic boxes, but I thought it was a scam. It’s actually a monstrous job to make the trick as good as the one done by a professional. And then from the age of 13, I immersed myself in books, I ‘ve seen videos, and I have become an enlightened, passionate amateur”.
To become the famous magician he is today, Eric Antoine went to university after high school. “I went to study psychology at Jussieu, medicine at Bichat, literature at the Sorbonne. At the same time, I was doing theatre. And I realized that I was happy on stage, but also writing, staging”, explains the juror of La France has an incredible talent to our colleagues. “I learned a lot from my studies. I preferred physics and chemistry a thousand times to more abstract mathematics, because there we find the secrets of our universe. Now, I see more magic in mathematics”.
Host Cristina Cordula will be the fashion expert on Who Can Beat Us? An area of expertise that the ex-model and image consultant knows inside out. “A true reference in terms of fashion in France, the fashion sphere no longer holds any secrets for her”, says the chain in its press release.
From New look for a new life to the Queens of shopping, Cristina Cordula has established herself as the leading figure of beauty on M6. But, before making a career in modeling and fashion around the world, the Brazilian studied journalism and communication at the Gama Filho University north of Rio de Janeiro.
Starred chef and host Philippe Etchebest will be the cooking expert in the general culture game on M6. From his beginnings in the big establishments on television (Top Chef, Cauchemar en cuisine), “he once again has the opportunity to pass on his knowledge. And his competitive spirit and his outspokenness promise great confrontations”, specifies the chain.
Before becoming Meilleur Ouvrier de France, Philippe Etchebest passed the competition to join the Lycée Hôtelier de Talence at the age of 14. “It’s an obvious choice for him, since he grew up in this universe from an early age. A competitor at heart, he sees it as a way to surpass himself”, we learn on his website. A culinary vocation cultivated in family pots that will never leave him. Working after school with his parents in their restaurant Le Chipiron, he completed his internships in the great gastronomy houses: Les Pyrénées** with Firmin Arrambide in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-port, Jean Bardet** in Tours and Le Gray D’Albion** at Jacques Chibois in Cannes.
Scientific expert for the M6 channel, Mac Lesggy has been hosting his show E=M6 for over 30 years. “With a unique sense of pedagogy and communicative enthusiasm”, the famous host has modernized “the way of talking about science on television”, indicates the press release. Not surprising when you know that the fifties is unbeatable on the subjects of everyday life.
Before making a career in television, Mac Lesggy lived in Biarritz during his youth where he had his baccalaureate in 1979 in the C series (the ancestor of the scientific sector). “For me, who loved science, I couldn’t do anything else! I liked math a lot, physics a little less, biology a lot. I already knew that after my baccalaureate, I wanted to go to engineering school. , a school of agronomy if possible, because biology was my strong subject. It was in this state of mind that I approached the baccalaureate”, he told the Figaro student in 2017.
Thereafter, Mac Lesggy headed towards the preparations for the competitions for the schools of agricultural engineers at the private high school Sainte-Geneviève. In 1984, the science enthusiast graduated from the Paris-Grignon National Agronomic Institute and began his career in statistical and market studies for the company Secodip (now a subsidiary of the Kantar group).
Host Marie Portolano is a reference in the world of sports on television. Before arriving on M6, the journalist was on Canal where she worked on Canal Football Club for four years, before taking the reins of Canal Sport Club, from 2018 to 2021. With ten years of career to her credit, she is a major asset for the animation team.
Before doing sports and the media, Marie Portolano obtained a master’s degree at the Sorbonne in Paris, writing her thesis on David Cronenberg, and did her first internship at the Première cinema review, details our colleagues from Inrocks, who devoted a portrait in 2016. It was after a “six-month backpacking trip” in South Africa that she chose to turn to journalism at the age of 19-20.
Emblematic voice of the French variety, Hélène Ségara is also one of the jurors of France has an incredible talent since 2015 on M6. With more than 12 million records sold in her 20-year career, the singer also has a varied and very rich musical culture. Enough to shake the vocal cords of his opponents.
Before knowing the glory, Hélène Rizzo of her real name was born in Six-fours les plage and lived in the south of France. Educated at the college of Fenouillet in boarding school in La Crau, she does not find her fulfillment on the benches of the school and wants to pursue her dream: that of becoming a singer.
Leaving her family and school environment at the age of 16, Hélène Ségara multiplied odd jobs to live from her passion by singing in the piano bars of the region. In the 1990s, she moved to Paris where she met Orlando, Dalida’s brother, who would help her career take off. The rest, you know her: she will be one of the stars of the musical Notre-Dame de Paris and is illustrated in memorable duets in her career with Andrea Bocelli, Laura Pausini or Bruno Pelletier.
