Facing the phantom threat as well as growing indifference, such is now the fate of the small world of press cartoonists. Ten years after the “Charlie Hebdo” massacre, most remain on guard, sometimes watching their backs, always on social networks. “The barometer of a country that has become very fragile on a certain number of subjects,” regret Julie Besombes and Simon Baert, alias Plop and KanKr.
Guests in particular on the pages of “Sud Ouest Dimanche” and “Le Monde”, the Béarnais duo thus underlines a new “French paradox”, when political censorship was for a long time the only thing preventing people from drawing in circles. “Today, unlike the era of “Hara-Kiri” or the beginnings of “Charlie”, we have the right to do everything, and moreover the State, through its laws, protects us quite well. . However, it is society that no longer accepts this freedom of expression, leaving us to fear a cautious evolution in this direction. »
“Political clientelism”
Official designer of “Sud Ouest” on a daily basis but also of “Canard chainé”, Urbs first swears in substance that nothing has really changed since the killing of January 7, 2015. “In reality, the situation had already started to evolve some time ago,” he adds, before also pointing out the enormous and annoying echo chamber of social networks. “The poor understanding, not to say incomprehension, of our work, combined with the global immediacy of the response, obviously cannot go well. »
For fear of displeasing or simply of dying, would self-censorship then be the worst enemy awaiting the press cartoonist?
Denouncing in passing the proliferation of “knuckleheads convinced that a wall of ice surrounds the flat Earth”, the Bordeaux resident is even more severe with part of the political class playing with fire and blood. “For a long time the far right and the Catholics were the only ones to hit us to satisfy their flock, but I must recognize that today this form of clientelism comes first of all from the left and from these LFI deputies who, by example, use Coco's drawings in ''Libé'' or ''Charlie''. However, they have the keys to understanding. »
The Béarnaise duo Plop and KanKr.
David Le Deodic / SO
For fear of displeasing or simply of dying, would self-censorship then be the worst enemy awaiting the press cartoonist? And to twist the pencil at the time of dipping it in the wound and the religions. “We stubbornly refuse to do so,” say Plop and KanKr despite some threats made against them. “But, for the moment, never a mass media lynching,” they whisper, praising a survival reflex within the profession. “Whenever there is a problem, even when the drawing is not very successful, there is great solidarity among colleagues. Everyone is on edge, worried. »
If he admits to having doubts about the thing for a while after “Charlie”, Urbs quickly understood that press cartoonists were just one target of Islamist terrorism among others. “For a few weeks, we wondered if we had gone too far with the Mohammed caricatures. And then these weirdos are going to murder 130 non-designers at the Bataclan. » And to cope today as best he can with this sinister daily routine. “When your loved ones are threatened, it’s a little different. But I can't go to the cops all the time either. »
