![The 26-year-old YouTuber conquering French journalism](https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/01-hugodecrypte-cnn.jpg?c=16x9&q=w_800,c_fill)
The 26-year-old YouTuber conquering French journalism
CNN
Tucked down the end of an alley in Paris’ 11th arrondissement is a notable media start-up - HugoDecrypte, delivering news that resonates with young audiences.
Hugo Travers may not think of himself as a journalist, but he could be the most popular one in France. Travers, 26, is the founder and face of HugoDecrypte, a French media start-up that delivers news aimed primarily at young audiences. What began eight years ago as a university student’s YouTube channel now boasts 14 million followers across its social media accounts, 200 million monthly views on TikTok and another 35 million on YouTube. HugoDecrypte’s Instagram account has more followers than Le Monde, the French daily widely considered the country’s newspaper of record, as well as BFMTV and France24, arguably the two most popular 24-hour news networks in France. And its daily news update is the most downloaded podcast in the country, according to media monitor ACPM. “What’s very special is the fact that I really started as a YouTuber and I consider myself really as a YouTuber,” Travers told CNN in an interview last month. Whatever you call him, there’s no denying that Travers has created something that resonates with young audiences shunning traditional media in France, where mistrust of the news industry runs deeper than in much of the rest of Europe. “He is seen as a very reliable source for news,” said Alice Antheaume, vice-dean at the Sciences Po Journalism School.