Imaginary interview with Cabu
by Charactorium · Cabu (1938 — 2015) · Visual Arts · Society · 6 min read
Late afternoon on Rue Nicolas-Appert, in the hubbub of a newsroom that smells of cold coffee and India ink. A man with a bowl cut and large round glasses barely looks up from his notebook, a pencil tucked behind his ear. He keeps sketching while talking, as if he can't help it.
—How does one become antimilitarist like you did?
I was sent to do my military service in Algeria, from 1958 to 1960, in the middle of the war. I was twenty years old, with a pencil in my pocket and the idea that they were going to make me play soldier. I returned something other than a well-behaved young man: I returned disgusted with the uniform, with discipline, with that stupid marching in rows that teaches you to obey without thinking. Since then, the barracks, the sergeant, the self-satisfied soldier, I've drawn them for decades. That's where, in the backcountry, my antimilitarism was born—not in books, but in the mud. I think I never forgave the army for stealing two years from me and for thinking it would make me manly. It mostly made me fiercely wary of people in stripes.
My antimilitarism was born not in books, but in the mud of the Algerian backcountry.
—Where did the idea for the character Le Beauf come from?
In 1978, I was trying to sketch a guy we all know: the average Frenchman, self-assured, racist without even knowing it, who pontificates at the bar. I called him Le Beauf, like 'beau-frère' (brother-in-law), because it's always the brother-in-law who explains France to you between the cheese and the pear. What amazed me is that the word left the drawing and entered the language, even into dictionaries. For me, Le Beauf isn't a gratuitous insult: it's the opposite of culture, the opposite of generosity, the opposite of tolerance. It's the average Frenchman at his worst. And the funniest, or saddest, part is that everyone thinks they recognize their neighbor, never themselves.
It's always the brother-in-law who explains France to you between the cheese and the pear.
—You never put down your notebook. Why this mania for constantly sketching?
Because the world doesn't pose. It passes. So I always keep a pencil and a sketchbook on me, and I croque—a draftsman's word, meaning to catch someone from life, quickly, before they move. In the morning, I read all the newspapers looking for the current event that will give me my daily drawing. But my real studio is the Paris metro: faces, hands, people sleeping with their mouths open, lovers, bores. In the evening, I like to hang around jazz clubs, and there too I sketch the musicians while they play. A line must be nervous, fast, almost before thought. If I think too much, life has already changed cars.
The world doesn't pose, it passes: so I sketch it before it moves.
—You also became, on television, a children's cartoonist. How did you experience that?
It's a side you wouldn't expect from a man from Charlie Hebdo! Starting in 1978, I drew live on Récré A2, the children's show. In front of the cameras, on a large slate, I made 'Le Dodu' appear and sketched the hosts while we were filming. The kids saw the drawing come to life before their eyes, line by line, which is a magic that printed paper doesn't provide. A whole generation of children knew my drawing style that way, without knowing that the same gentleman elsewhere made drawings that could be ferocious. I always thought you shouldn't lie to children or take them for idiots. Showing them that a drawing is made by hand was already teaching them to look.
The kids saw the drawing come to life before their eyes, line by line.
—What do you say to those who find Le Beauf mean, almost contemptuous?
I understand that people find it harsh. But I'm not mocking a class, I'm mocking an attitude. Le Beauf isn't the poor guy, it's the guy content with his stupidity, the one who elevates his prejudices into common sense. When I created him in 1978, I wanted to hold up a mirror, not spit from above. Caricature is that: you exaggerate a flaw so that it's seen better, you magnify the nose of the lie. And if the word entered everyday language, it's because people recognized it around them. The real risk isn't to offend Le Beauf, it's to become a bit of a beauf yourself without realizing it—complacent, closed-minded, certain you're right. I watch myself on that as much as others.
I'm not mocking a class, I'm mocking an attitude.
—You mentioned jazz. What place does it hold in your work?
A huge place, even if it's forgotten behind my political drawings. In the evening, after closing the paper, when the newspaper has gone to press and the tension eases, I go listen to music. Jazz is improvisation, exactly like a sketch from life: you capture the moment, you don't start over. I sit with my notebook and draw the musicians during a solo, the fingers, the sweat, the abandon. There's a secret kinship between the line and the note: both must be right on the first try. In Paris, between cafés, clubs, and newsrooms, I've spent my life observing people who didn't know they were being watched. The jazzman in a trance is my Grand Duduche in music—a dreamer who, for the space of a solo, escapes the adult world.
There's a secret kinship between the line and the note: both must be right on the first try.
—In 2006, your drawing of Muhammad caused a scandal. How did you experience that storm?
In 2006, Charlie Hebdo republished the cartoons, and I designed the front page: a weeping Muhammad, overwhelmed, sighing 'C'est dur d'être aimé par des cons' (It's hard being loved by jerks). What I was targeting wasn't believers, it was fanatics, those who make God speak to justify their hatred. We were taken to court, and in 2007 the newspaper was acquitted in the name of freedom of expression. I held that dear as the apple of my eye: in a Republic, you must be able to laugh at everything, otherwise you laugh at nothing. Blasphemy means nothing in a secular society—it's a word to shut people up. A drawing kills no one. It stings, it annoys, it makes you think. That's precisely why it bothers the powerful and the prigs.
In a Republic, you must be able to laugh at everything, otherwise you laugh at nothing.
—You often say that drawing is a weapon. What do you mean by that?
The editorial cartoon is a weapon. You don't fight with flowers, you fight with pencils. That's not an empty phrase: when I put my line on a front page, I'm aiming at an injustice, a hypocrisy, a too-smug stripe-wearer. An article can be skimmed; a good drawing jumps at you, stays in the eye. Since the days of Hara-Kiri, the 'stupid and nasty' newspaper, I learned that a well-placed line hurts a powerful person more than a long speech. But it's a weapon that draws no blood: it wounds pride, never the body. That's why I worry when people respond to a drawing with anything other than another drawing. The pencil calls for the pencil, not for the rest.
You don't fight with flowers, you fight with pencils.
—Does that Algerian experience still appear in your drawings from the 1980s?
It never left me. Twenty years after Algeria, I was still drawing the obtuse sergeant, the medal-laden colonel, the warmonger who has never heard anything whistle but his alarm clock. It's the same disgust that, digging deeper, gave us Le Beauf: because the militarist and the beauf are often the same man, the one who loves order so he doesn't have to think. My Grand Duduche, that dreamy, pacifist high school student I invented in 1960, is the exact opposite: the gentle kid who refuses the brutality of the world. Deep down, between the dreamer and the sergeant, I've spent my life opposing these two faces of France. The barracks gave me my enemies for fifty years. I should almost thank it.
The militarist and the beauf are often the same man: the one who loves order so he doesn't have to think.
—What did drawing in public, live, teach you about your own craft?
A lot. At the Récré A2 table, there's no eraser, no deadline to fix a mistake: the line goes out and stays. That forced me into total honesty of the hand. You think a draftsman hides his secret; I, on that slate, showed it to the children like a cook opening his kitchen. And I understood one thing: drawing from life, whether it's Le Dodu for the kids or a minister for the front page, is always the same gesture—catching the essential in three lines before the thing escapes. Whether the audience is a roomful of children or a pressured newsroom, you can't cheat with a pencil. It immediately tells whether the hand trembles or knows what it wants.
There's no eraser live: the line goes out and stays.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Cabu's profile. It dramatises what the figure might have said based on what we know about them, but does not constitute attested historical testimony. For primary sources and factual documentation, refer to the full profile.