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.
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