Imaginary interview with Professeur Choron
by Charactorium · Professeur Choron (1929 — 2005) · Performing Arts · Society · Literature · 5 min read
Late 1970s, somewhere in a smoky Parisian bistro, not far from the editorial office. Georges Bernier — the Professeur Choron — orders a drink, cigar already wedged in the corner of his mouth, and agrees to talk, provided he isn't taken too seriously. Here is what he said.
—Let's start with the name. Where does “Professeur Choron” come from?
Ah, mystery, my friend, you have to nurture it like a good cigar! They say I come from a Choron-sur-Mer, somewhere on the English Channel — nonsense. The truth is far more prosaic: the name comes simply from the Rue Choron in Paris, where the editorial office used to hang out. But admit it, a professor born in a small seaside town sounds much better than some guy who nicked a street sign! I was born in Beaulieu, in the Nièvre, in 1929, and believe me, no one ever professed anything there. The character, you build it. A good pseudonym is already a provocation: it forces people to wonder who you really are.
Mystery, my friend, you have to nurture it like a good cigar.
—In 1960, with Cavanna, you launched Hara-Kiri. What was the idea behind the paper?
The idea? To blow up everything that took itself seriously. We slapped on the cover a motto that summed up the program: “Hara-Kiri, journal bête et méchant.” People thought it was an insult; it was a declaration of love for bad taste. With Cavanna, we wanted a rag that would laugh at everything, especially at what you're not supposed to laugh at. The monthly started in 1960, and the very next year, the authorities banned us for the first time — proof we were hitting the mark. Bête, because we refused well-mannered intelligence. Méchant, because kindness is the death of humor. We didn't do lace; we did blood and belly laughs.
Bête, because we refused well-mannered intelligence. Méchant, because kindness is the death of humor.
—Concretely, how was an issue put together in the editorial office?
In the morning, I arrived late — the night had often been long, does that surprise you? So we'd happily argue over the upcoming headlines, cigar smoke filling the room. In the afternoon, it was closing time: the layout table, the drawings we'd choose, the texts we'd type on the typewriter, and Cavanna grumbling, and the cartoonists howling with laughter. A good headline is found by three people in a cloud of tobacco, shouting louder than the neighbor. We didn't calculate anything; we went for the slap, the front page that would make the bourgeois reader spit out his coffee. Serious journalism closes in anxiety; we closed in a racket. That's how you make a bête et méchant paper.
A good headline is found by three people in a cloud of tobacco, shouting louder than the neighbor.
—November 1970. Tell us about the famous front page on Colombey.
Ah, that one! General de Gaulle had just died, a few days after a fire that ravaged a nightclub and killed dozens. The whole country was mourning the Great Charles. At Hara-Kiri Hebdo, we ran the headline: “Bal tragique à Colombey — 1 mort.” Just one, you see? The general. We mixed the two tragedies into one murderous sentence. The Ministry of the Interior banned us on the spot, on November 16, 1970. Some cried sacrilege; I thought we'd never worked better. A front page that kills its own paper — that's almost a work of art. We didn't mean disrespect to the dead; we wanted to laugh at France kneeling in lockstep.
A front page that kills its own paper — that's almost a work of art.
—How do you get around a ministerial ban in a few days?
You change the name, by God! Ban Hara-Kiri Hebdo, fine: the next day, we bring out the same rag, the same team, the same nastiness, under a new banner. We had already launched a monthly comic book named after Charlie Brown, Charlie Mensuel, in 1969 — so we took that first name, and voilà Charlie Hebdo, in 1970. Censorship thinks it kills a beast; it gives birth to another, more lively. The authorities themselves delivered Charlie, without meaning to, by trying to strangle us. That's the best lesson I ever learned: the more you try to silence a bête et méchant paper, the more you give it a second life. You can't kill laughter with an administrative stamp.
Censorship thinks it kills a beast; it gives birth to another, more lively.
—You have a reputation as a provocateur on the airwaves. What did you seek in scandal?
The look on people's faces! Nothing delights me more than a bourgeois choking with indignation. On radio, on TV, I'd show up unshaven, disheveled, cigar in mouth, and say out loud what propriety forbids. The microphone, for me, was a weapon: give a mic to a decent man, he purrs; give it to me, and it explodes. Some loved me for it, others hated me — both suited me. Faithful to the motto “bête et méchant,” I deliberately shocked, because moral comfort always gave me hives. Provocation isn't gratuitous: it's waking up the sleepwalkers with a shout.
Give a mic to a decent man, he purrs; give it to me, and it explodes.
—This disheveled character, this bon vivant of the bistros — is it a mask or is it you?
Both, obviously, as with all show-offs! In the evening, you'd find me in the cafés and bistros of Paris, solving the world's problems between drinks, voice rising, laughter booming. I love bistro food, wine, alcohol — a lot of alcohol, let's say it — and a cigar to top off the meal. A proper suit, a tie, bourgeois codes — not for me: I spent my life rejecting them. Is it a role? A little. But a role you play to the end ends up sticking to your skin like smoke to your fingers. The partying provocateur wasn't a Sunday costume: it was my way of existing, at the table as on the front page.
A role you play to the end ends up sticking to your skin like smoke to your fingers.
—Years pass, and the team falls apart. What happened in that break?
What always happens between people who laughed too much together: money, pride, fatigue. I was a chaotic businessman, I admit — I knew how to set a cover on fire, not how to keep books. The disagreements with Cavanna and the cartoonists eventually swept everything away, and Charlie Hebdo stopped in 1981. I ended up alone at the helm of a declining Hara-Kiri, like a captain on a leaky boat. You start a paper together, in laughter; you lose it each on your own, in bitterness. That may be the price of bête et méchant: by sparing no one, you end up not sparing each other.
You start a paper together, in laughter; you lose it each on your own, in bitterness.
—If you imagine someone reading this in half a century, what will remain of Professeur Choron?
Not much, probably — and that doesn't bother me. I see the trend: the paper slips away from me, the accomplices will one day relaunch without me, and I'll end up in a corner, penniless, pretty much forgotten. The founder pushed out of his own creation — it's an old story. But if by chance someone still reads me, let them at least remember this: in Paris, in the sixties, a bunch of brats invented a press that bowed to nothing, “bête et méchant,” and it made a racket that respectability hasn't finished hearing. The rest — glory, money, statues — I leave to serious people. Me, I will have made people laugh in the wrong places.
Me, I will have made people laugh in the wrong places.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Professeur Choron'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.