Mouloud Achour (French-Algerian journalist)

Mouloud Achour (born 1 August 1980)^[1] is a French-Algerian^[2] journalist, television host, actor, director, and screenwriter. He has been the host of the French television program Clique on Canal+ since September 2013.

Mouloud Achour was born on 1 August 1980, in Montreuil, a commune in the department of Seine-Saint-Denis, France, to Algerian immigrants.^[1] His father is a laborer, while his mother was a stay-at-home parent and raised him and her children.^[3] From an early age, he developed a passion for rap and hip-hop. At the age of 16, he began hosting the show Conscious Style, discussing hip-hop and politics on the radio station Fréquence Paris Plurielle.^[4]

Between 1999 and 2001, Achour was passionate about Rockin' Squat's rap group Assassin. In the early 2000s, he became a French rap journalist for the French newspaper Radikal. Later, he went on to write for the American magazine The Source and the French magazines Technikart and Be.^[4] From 2002 to 2005, Achour presented on the Game One channel, on the Game Zone program, writing columns devoted to music releases and new trends. He also worked as a presenter on the French community radio station Fréquence Paris Plurielle and on MTV with China Moses.^[5]

After joining Canal+, he began writing a column in the French television program La Matinale called "L'Avis de Mouloud" in 2006. He conducted a series of interviews with politicians considered to be “out of touch” with new trends in music and other areas. One of the highlights of the column was his interview with French politician Jean-Marie Le Pen, which remained one of the column's most memorable moments until 2008.^[4]

From 2008 to 2013, Achour appeared on the Canal+ television program Le Grand Journal, where he presented a segment on new movements.^[6] He also took part in the Friday Music Battle against DJ Tania Bruna-Rosso and, from September 2010, hosted the "Le Daily Mouloud" segment on Le Grand Journal. ^[7]

Achour is also a print journalist; he wrote for the French newspaper Radikal from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, penning the first articles on rappers Rohff and Booba, and publishing interviews with French rappers, who were systematically featured on the front page.^[8] He also contributed to The Source, an American magazine specializing in hip-hop, and currently writes for the cultural magazine Technikart and the women's magazine Be, and was also one of the first editors of the French edition of Vice.^[9]

He founded the Kerozen label with the rap groups TTC and La Caution.^[10] In 2012, he founded his own production company, Première Fois Productions, which employed 40 people in 2019.^[11]

In September 2013, Achour presented the popular culture television program Clique on Canal+.^[12] Guests on Clique included Noam Chomsky, Pharrell Williams, Rick Ross, Usain Bolt, Vincent Cassel, Zinedine Zidane, Claude Hagège, Vladimir Cosma, Michel Serres, Ibrahim Maalouf, IAM, Kaaris, and others. Due to low ratings, Clique was not renewed for the fall 2014 season, and the show instead continued on Canal+'s YouTube channel with huge success, compared to television audiences.^[13] Guests have included Pharrell Williams, Kanye West (giving his only filmed interview in France), Omar Sy, and Justin Bieber.

In 2014, Achour was an ambassador for the clothing brand Uniqlo.^[11]

In September 2015, he joined the new team of the French television program Le Petit Journal on Canal+.^[14]

In May 2016, Achour appeared on the cover of O magazine (formerly known as Obsession), the fashion magazine by French news magazine L'Obs, as the “Minister of Cool".^[15] In June 2016, he founded the magazine Téléramadan with journalists Mehdi Meklat and Badroudine Saïd Abdallah,^[16] whose aim is to “respond to inaccuracies and various forms of humiliation” in order to showcase all facets of Islam. On the France Inter radio program L'Instant M, Achour explained that his goal was to bring true diversity to French media by giving a voice to the poor and young people.^[17] The three founders created their own publishing house, Les éditions du Grand Remplacement. For Nicolas Delesalle of Télérama, Téléramadan is “the magazine for Muslims who are tired of apologizing for existing.”^[18]

From 2016 to 2017, Achour presented the program Le Gros Journal on Canal+.^[19]

Clique returned to Canal+ in fall 2017, in a new free-to-air broadcast version called Clique Dimanche.^[20] In October 2018, Canal+ announced the launch of a new channel on 4 November 2018, Clique TV, managed by Achour. ^[21]

Starting in Fall of 2019, he presented Clique every weeknight on Canal+, which followed in the footsteps of two popular programs on the pay-TV channel, Nulle part ailleurs and Le Grand Journal, but with a greater focus on the current world between cultures and generations.^[22]

On 4 October 2021, Achour appeared on Europe 1 for a new program called Verveine Underground.^[23] Every evening on the show, a guest performs songs and reveals their playlist. Once a week, a DJ joins the show and plays a set for listeners, with his first guest being MC Solaar.^[24] The program ended on 30 June 2022.^[25]

In June 2023, Clique reached an all-time low with a 0% audience share.^[26]

In 2012, Achour co-authored an op-ed piece with rapper Mokless and columnist Felix Marquardt in the French newspaper Libération, entitled "Jeunes de France, votre salut est ailleurs: barrez-vous!" (English: “Young people of France, your salvation lies elsewhere: get out of here!”), addressing what they described as the unenviable fate of Generation Y in France.^[27][28]

Achour was knighted as a member of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2019.^[29]