Imaginary interview with Siné
by Charactorium · Siné (1928 — 2016) · Visual Arts · Society · 6 min read
A Tuesday deadline, in the magnificent disorder of a Parisian newsroom: crushed cigarette butts, crumpled proofs, a smell of India ink and cold coffee. Siné, hair disheveled and with a throaty laugh, pushes aside a pile of drawings to clear a corner of his table. “Sit there, but don't touch the cat,” he warns, pointing to a sketched black feline that appears on all his pages. The conversation begins, already defiant.
—How did drawing become your profession, and where does your pseudonym come from?
Maurice Sinet was too long to sign quickly. So I cut it: Sinet, the first letters, that gives Siné, and off we go. What really launched me was this obsession I had around 1956 of drawing cats endlessly — the cat-loupe, the cat-grin, a whole bestiary of visual puns. I collected them in Complot, and go figure, people loved it. The black cat eventually became my signature; I slip it in everywhere, like others put a flourish. It's an animal that submits to no one, that looks down on you and gently despises you — I couldn't have dreamed of a better standard-bearer. A cartoonist, deep down, is that: someone who refuses to perform tricks when whistled at.
The black cat submits to no one — I couldn't have dreamed of a better standard-bearer.
—Describe the gesture, the material, the tool of a press drawing: how is a caricature born at your table?
Everything hinges on the pen and India ink. A pen that catches the paper, a black, nervous line that must kill in one stroke — no soft draft, no second thoughts. When I need shadow, weight, I switch to brush and wash, but the essence is in the dry point. In the afternoon, I sit at my drawing table, the morning's news still stuck in my throat, and I search for the most cutting line before the deadline. Because that's the real boss of a press cartoonist: the clock. You don't draw at leisure, you draw in urgency, with the printer champing at the bit. It's this pressure that brings out the cruel idea — the one you'd never dare with all the time in the world.
A black, nervous line that must kill in one stroke — no second thoughts.
—Do you remember the moment your pencil went to war against the Algerian War?
The late fifties. The country was sinking into a dirty colonial business and I, at L'Express, was hammering away with drawings. Anticolonialism for me wasn't a salon pose: it was refusing that people be tortured and killed in the name of the flag. Result: newspaper seizures, lawsuits, and one day threats from the OAS — those guys who wanted to keep Algeria French at gunpoint. You can be an anarchist, but when a Secret Armed Organization promises you a bullet, it makes you read your mail differently. But back down? Never. A drawing that bothers no one is a failed drawing. I preferred the pencil that scares the powerful over the one that strokes them.
A drawing that bothers no one is a failed drawing.
—After the cats, your album Siné Massacre caused a scandal. What were you aiming for?
The gentle wordplay on cats, fine, it made me famous. But the times were too tense to stay in pretty puns. In 1962, I released Siné Massacre: ferocious, anticlerical drawings that attacked priests, soldiers, all the self-righteous. The title said it all — it was a massacre, joyful and methodical. Where Complot made you smile, Siné Massacre was meant to make you grit your teeth. I understood then that my real material wasn't the cat, it was anger: anger you sharpen, stage, make funny so it carries further. Laughter is the most underhanded weapon against serious people — and the powerful are always very serious.
Laughter is the most underhanded weapon against serious people.
—You openly claimed anarchism. What did that mean concretely in your work?
Anarchism isn't chaos, it's the stubborn refusal to bow your head. The black flag I wave isn't decoration: it's a no spat at all authority — the state, the army, the church, the cops. I was libertarian and atheist, and I shouted it loud, because keeping quiet is already obeying. Naturally, attacking all the hats at once, you collect lawsuits: I had heaps of them, courts, fines, seizures. I wore them like medals. A cartoonist never taken to court is one who draws flowers. My job was to put my finger where it hurts and press, laughing, all the way.
Anarchism isn't chaos, it's the stubborn refusal to bow your head.
—What was a typical day like, between the studio and the city?
In the morning, I devoured the newspapers, on the lookout for the day's scandal or stupidity — that's the cartoonist's fuel, fresh indignation. In the afternoon, at the drawing table, pen in hand, I hunted for the line that condenses it all into one image. And in the evening, off to the Parisian bistros: that's where fellow cartoonists, journalists, activists gathered, in a din of political discussions washed down with red wine and jazz, which I loved. I never separated work from life; my table, my glass, and my arguments were all part of the same workshop. A bon vivant, yes, but an angry bon vivant — the two go very well together, whatever the sad sacks say.
I never separated work from life — my table, my glass, and my arguments, the same workshop.
—That era of protest, May '68, how did you accompany it with your magazines?
As early as 1965, I had launched L'Enragé — the title said my mood. When May '68 erupted, everything I had been demanding for years suddenly seemed to overflow into the streets: free speech, refusal of leaders, insolence toward the old beards of power. The protest press exploded, and I was in it, pencil in hand. A drawing in those moments is worth a paving stone, except it goes through walls and ends up on every table. I've always believed that caricature is a public service: it deflates hot-air balloons, restores the powerful to their real size. In '68, for a few weeks, we felt the balloons would never inflate again. We were wrong, of course — but what a breath of fresh air.
A drawing in those moments is worth a paving stone — except it goes through walls.
—In 2008, at age 80, you were fired from Charlie Hebdo. What happened that day?
They showed me the door at Charlie Hebdo after a column where I took a swipe at Sarkozy's son — they deemed it too much, asked me to apologize. Apologize! At eighty, after a lifetime of apologizing for nothing? They might as well have asked me to hand over my black flag. I refused flat out. What hurt most wasn't the controversy, it was that a paper I had served so long was asking me, of all people, to bend. An anarchist doesn't bend; he packs his bags and starts over elsewhere. I was at an age when others watch TV in slippers, and I found myself overnight without a platform. Nothing to cry about: something to roll up my sleeves for.
They might as well have asked me to hand over my black flag.
—Rather than retire, you immediately founded your own paper. Where did that energy come from?
On September 10, 2008, a few weeks after the firing, the first issue of Siné Hebdo came out. At my age, founding a satirical weekly, they said it was madness; I called it breathing. I certainly wasn't going to let my last word be with those who fired me. Then, in 2011, the adventure continued under the title Siné Mensuel, which I kept up until the end. The truth is, a cartoonist doesn't retire: he draws or he dies, and often the two follow close. As long as a hand held the pen, there was a powerful person to deflate somewhere. No one ever gave me a platform; I always built one myself, with ink and anger.
A cartoonist doesn't retire: he draws or he dies.
—After so many battles and lawsuits, what do you retain of this freedom you never let go?
I told it all without flattery in my memoirs, Ma vie, mon œuvre, mon cul ! — a title that warns you won't find a moral lesson. What do I retain? That they never silenced me, despite censorship, seizures, courts. Freedom isn't a right politely handed to you; it's a bone you tear away and keep between your teeth, growling. I have no faith, no boss, no god — just a pen, a drawing table, and the stubborn conviction that you must laugh at the powerful as long as they try to command us. If anything outlives me, I hope it's this: the idea that a truly nasty drawing is worth more than a long obedient speech.
Freedom is a bone you tear away and keep between your teeth, growling.
This imaginary interview was generated by artificial intelligence from sources documented in Siné'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.