From poking fun at the king to drawings of God, we take a closer look at France's relationship with satire, particularly when it comes to cartoons. As we mark the tenth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, we find out how the satirical weekly was born out of censorship. We also take stock of the state of satirical cartoons today, in France and abroad.
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00:00Now for our Entre Nous segment, and today we're focusing on the 10th anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks.
00:07Solange Mougin is in the studio with me. Solange, good to see you.
00:10Twelve people at the satirical newspaper were killed in those attacks of January 2015,
00:16and France has a long tradition of satire. Is this kind of humour specifically French?
00:22Well, satire is not specifically French. Other nations also have a long tradition of it and of satirical cartoons.
00:29But the French are attached to this art form of poking fun. So I've taken a deep dive into the archives.
00:35But before we go into its history, let's define exactly what satire is, as it may feel to some like a bit of a vague literary concept.
00:43According to the Oxford Dictionary, the first definition, which is what we're concerned with here,
00:48is the use of humour, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices,
00:54particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other issues.
00:58Now, when it comes to France, already in the Middle Ages, satire had a strong place in society.
01:06Les buffons du roi, or royal buffoons or court jesters, they were allowed to poke fun at the king to amuse the courts.
01:13Well, with the banning of them and the 1564 law outlawing all caricatures of Henry III
01:19and then Richelieu's censorship law of 1629, the outlet of satire was actually taken on largely by writers.
01:27Molière and Jean de La Fontaine are good examples about how plays and fables can mock the powerful.
01:33Now, cartoonists, they became one of the emblems of French satire during the French Revolution.
01:38Over 1500 satirical engravings were published then, and it grew from there.
01:47It's at this time when cartoons and caricatures developed.
01:51Throughout the 19th and 20th century, this phenomenon grew from leaflets and pamphlets
01:56to newspapers with the development of printing techniques.
02:04Now, when it comes to satire in France, there are two laws that were and still are the cornerstone
02:09of satire. That's the Human Rights Law of 1789, establishing the freedom of expression,
02:14and the 1881 law for the freedom of the press. And it is these fundamental tenets that brought
02:20millions of people out into the streets 10 years ago in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo.
02:25The vast majority of them did not read and still do not read the newspaper.
02:29But there is this strong belief in these precious ideals of freedom of expression,
02:34and that Charlie Hebdo and other papers and other cartoonists fight for.
02:39So where did Charlie Hebdo get its start, Solange?
02:42Well, Charlie Hebdo was quite literally born out of a need not only for people to poke fun
02:49at the government, at religions, at institutions, but also as a way to get around censorship.
02:53In 1970, the government tried to curb the distribution of the paper Harakiri because
03:00of its headline, A Tragic Ball at Colombay, One Death. We see it there. Now, like with a lot of
03:06satire, the headline does not seem offensive today, but it was at the time for many people.
03:11Let me give you some of the context. In that month of November 1970, 148 people died in a disco fire.
03:19Then nine days later, Charles de Gaulle died. So the paper was poking fun at the passing of
03:24this French icon, de Gaulle, and comparing his death, one man, to the death of so many
03:30more people. It was in bad taste to many, but for others, that was the point of the satire.
03:36Nonetheless, the government tried to censor Harakiri. So Charlie Hebdo was created to sort
03:41of bypass these rules. And on its first issue, you can see that pushback. You have the headline
03:47that reads, there is no censorship in France. And you have a man walking with a cane saying,
03:53freedom of the press, question mark. Better to hear that than to be deaf. Now, over the past
04:00half century, Charlie Hebdo, but also other papers like the Canard enchaîné, and also other mediums
04:05too, like the public show Les Guignols, Gros Lend, and also on social media, there is this strong
04:10tradition of poking fun, of making people uncomfortable, of attacking with humor to get
04:15people thinking about society, to get us thinking about our own limits as well. All of which the
04:19cartoonist Prentieu, who used to draw for Le Monde, describes. It's a way to say things, to not take
04:28oneself too seriously, to mock, to annoy. Our job is to annoy and be a thorn in one's side.
04:34We do good where it hurts. So Solange, how is satire doing in France? Is it a dying art form,
04:42or is there more support than there's ever been? Well, let's start with the concerning, and then
04:46we'll get to the more hopeful. According to Le Monde, there are just over 30 cartoonists that
04:51have a press card today, whereas in 1950, there were more than 200 of them. This is in part because
04:56people read papers less, which is part of a wider crisis in journalism. The problem is not so much
05:04the state of cartoons in the press, it's the state of the press on the whole. It's an economic
05:09problem. Billionaires buying up papers. The fact is that the press is doing so badly. Maybe the
05:15press is starting to cut back on cartoonists because they don't think it's their top priority.
05:19I think there's something to worry about, but not just for cartoons in the press, but the press in
05:24general. Now, there is the issue as well, though, of changing taste in regard to satire. Things that
05:32were offensive a decade ago may not be today, but the opposite can be true as well. Some of us have
05:38less taste for it. Some auto-censor themselves, including in the press. It is an ever-changing
05:44continuum, for better or worse. And potentially, blatant censorship of satirical cartoons,
05:50well, it still exists, even in Western nations. Take a potential example. Just last week, a cartoonist
05:57Ann Telnes resigned from the Washington Post because it refused to publish a cartoon mocking
06:01the paper's owner, Jeff Bezos, of him bowing down to Donald Trump. Telnes said it was censorship,
06:08the paper says that he didn't run the cartoon because it was repetitive. Another example,
06:13the New York Times, it pulled its cartoon section entirely in 2019. Here in France,
06:18satirical cartoons and papers still exist, but they may be a dying or at least ill art form,
06:24at least in the newspaper form. That doesn't mean, though, that humor and satire and the
06:28controversies that they create are gone. The radio host, a humorist, Guillaume Maurice,
06:35his firing over jokes about Benjamin Netanyahu comes to mind in that regard.
06:39So that's the concerning part. The positive, at least for today, comes from the Jean Jaurès
06:44Foundation, which did a study with Charlie Hebdo for the occasion of this anniversary,
06:49and it found that contrary to what many believe, the right to mock, to blaspheme, to the use of
06:54cartoons in a satirical way is, for 76% of the French population, an integral part of freedom
07:01of expression. And this belief, well, it is actually growing. Okay, interesting stuff. Solange,
07:06thank you very much for that. Solange Mougin there with our Entre Nous segment.
07:12Paris Direct continues after a quick break. Stay with us.