Tout le monde en parle

Program Details

Tout le monde en parle was inspired by a similarly named French television program for which Radio-Canada purchased the broadcasting rights in the early 2000s. The show is typically filmed before a live studio audience. It is filmed at Studio A in Montreal’s Maison de Radio-Canada and is broadcast Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. EST. Until 2020, it was recorded earlier in the day. In spring 2020 and throughout much of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was broadcast live but without an audience. It has since continued to be broadcast with a live studio audience.

The program’s host is Guy A. Lepage, who is assisted by several co-hosts who take turns in the role. For many years, Lepage’s sidekick and self-appointed “court jester” was Dany Turcotte, a comedian, actor and writer who held the role until 2021. As of 2025, the co-hosts are Kim Lévesque-Lizotte, Jean-Sébastien Girard and MC Gilles.

Program Format

Tout le monde en parle lasts two hours — sometimes more, if necessary — in its prime-time Sunday-night time slot. Each program includes multiple guests from diverse backgrounds. They are interviewed by Lepage and then continue an informal and on-going conversation with the co-host and Lepage. It is not uncommon for Lepage, his co-host and the guest(s) to drink wine during their discussion. The format is meant to emulate the conversation at a dinner party.

The show is often funny, can contain spontaneous debates between the participants and has a number of rituals that have evolved over the course of the program’s history. As an example, Guy Lepage will often ask “Vous restez avec nous? (Are you staying with us?)” of his guests, giving them an opportunity to stick around and participate in the group conversation after the interview. Longtime co-host Dany Turcotte gave the guests a personalized, handwritten one-liner on a cue card as another running ritual.

While many talk shows feature off-colour humour, TLMEP is distinct in that the off-colour humour may be injected into an otherwise serious topic of conversation, or directed at a “serious” guest. The program draws heavily from Quebec’s well-established star system. The show is often balanced between arts and culture and current affairs. It typically features politicians, activists, academics or journalists who weigh in on important news stories of the previous week.

Guy A. Lepage

Guy A. Lepage was well-known to Quebecers long before he began hosting Tout le monde en parle. A comedian and comic actor, Lepage was a founding member of the groundbreaking musical comedy troupe Rock et Belles Oreilles. He then went on to create and star in Un gars, une fille, a highly successful and influential award-winning sitcom that has run sporadically for 10 seasons since 1997. (It was the first French Canadian production to be adapted to American television, among 30 other territories worldwide.)

Lepage has an avuncular, everyman persona in TLMEP. He credits the fact that he never worked professionally as a journalist with his ability to freely ask direct questions of his guests.

Significance

With weekly viewership that often reaches seven figures in a province of just over nine million people, Tout le monde en parle has a significant cultural presence in Quebec. The program tends to generate considerable attention on social media during its broadcast and spurs discussion in the province’s leading newspapers and around workplace water coolers.

While not all episodes of TLMEP feature politicians or a political interview, an appearance on the program can make or break a political campaign. The New Democratic Party (NDP)’s breakthrough in Quebec in the 2011 federal election is largely credited to NDP leader Jack Layton’s appearance during the campaign. Since Layton’s appearance in 2011, all major federal party leaders except Stephen Harper have appeared on the show. The ability to carry on a conversation in French, answering questions from a variety of people and on a myriad of subjects, is now considered a necessary step for anyone hoping to become prime minister. For example, the appearance of former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney (who speaks admittedly remedial French) during the federal election campaign in early 2025 was intensely scrutinized.