Fans of Intervilles only had four years to wait for the return of Guy Lux's much-imitated inter-town contest after the programme was first cancelled in 1991. In 1995, the series was successfully revived by the TF1 channel (the main channel of the ORTF) and French summers suddenly seemed so much more like they used to be. A much-loved part of Twentieth Century vie française was well and truly back.

As is usually the case with a revival, with it came a reboot. The most notable change from the Intervilles of old was that the TF1 version ditched the tradition of the events being held simultaneously in the two competing towns. Henceforth, the recordings would be made in a single location with a home town and an 'invited' town. Meanwhile, new presenters replaced the old, with Gilles Amado becoming the master of ceremonies, while Jean-Pierre Foucault defended the home town each week and Fabrice would defend the invited town. Also on hand were Nathalie Simon and Olivier Chiabodo, the referee.

There's an old adage that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and when Intervilles returned afresh after four years away, this was definitely proved correct. The first edition of the new series, featuring a confrontation between Valenciennes and Saint-Amand-les-Eaux, garnered a remarkable audience of over nine million viewers - a record for the series. The audience figures were sustained and, pleased with the series' showing, TF1 commissioned four extra programmes to be recorded in the winter, to be broadcast as Interglaces late in 1995. Some elements of the new Intervilles were familiar - the famous 'vachettes' making a totally expected return to throw an element of unpredictability into the proceedings - others less so, such as The Challenge, a recurring physical test in each programme.

The Intervilles 1996 series was again a great success, and a third series, for 1997 was commissioned and saw Thierry Roland replace Fabrice, who had decided to leave the series. The games remained much the same and the Challenge this year was for competitors to slide the furthest possible distance along a long soaped track (a game that was later revived for the Channel 5 It's A Knockout).

Just when everything looked rosy for the series, Intervilles soon found itself unexpectedly at the centre of a scandal focusing on referee, Olivier Chiabodo (pictured, right). Shortly after final of the 1997 season at Disneyland Paris, the long-running French satirical journal, Le Canard Enchaîné, published an article  which accused Chiabodo of cheating during the 'intellectuals' section of the programmes. The newspaper published photographs from the 2nd July 1997 heat which they claimed showed referee Chiabodo indicating the answers to the questions to the Puy du Fou team (who were playing against Ancenis). There were suspicions that Chiabodo may have previously helped the Puy du Fou team on two other occasions - in the Intervilles finals of 1996 and 1997, both of which they had won. This brought Intervilles into disrepute and undermined the public's respect for the honesty of the series. Olivier Chiabodo's employment was terminated by TF1 after an internal review, although he has always tenaciously protested his innocence. Reacting to the scandal in public, TF1 defended its honour and obtained a symbolic 1 Franc settlement from Le Canard Enchaîné in 1999. 

'Chiabadogate' is widely seen as the reason that when Intervilles returned in 1998, it was with a shuffled pack of presenters and officials. Chiabodo was replaced by Laurent Mariotte with Robert Wurtz employed as Official Referee in order to make a statement that everything would be above board. Meanwhile, with Thierry Roland occupied with the FIFA World Cup (staged in France that summer), his place was taken by Julien Courbet, and Delphine Anaïs stepped in for Nathalie Simon who had left Intervilles due to pregnancy. Only Jean-Pierre Foucault remained from the 1997 line-up.

It was maybe due to the refereeing scandal, perhaps due to falling public interest in Intervilles, but the 1998 Intervilles series saw a week-on-week fall in audience figures, which were never better than average. Consequently, TF1 decide to rest Intervilles as a regular series, although they do return it for an extravagant one-off Paris/Beijing special in September 1999, a co-production with Chinese television. Despite high hopes for the programme, the special received unimpressive viewing figures in France and it was this that finally convinced TF1 to close the door on Intervilles for good. Once again, the series was to return, some five years later, but on a different channel, France 2.

by Alan Hayes
Adapted from Wikipedia entry