Paris Chansonniers Are Enjoying A Golden Age

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29383, 9 December 1960, Page 22

Paris Chansonniers Are Enjoying A Golden Age

[By a Rtuter Corrtfpondent} PARIS. Paris chansonniers, the handful of satirical poets and songsters who, since the Middle Ages, have harassed French Governments with their barbed wit, are enjoying a golden age today. The chansonniers typify the Frenchman’s love of sharp, intellectual criticism and reluctance to submit to authority. Laughter blunts the sting of the outrageous insults which unwritten law permits them to aim at all and sundry with seemingly -inexplicable immunity.

“The Frenchman is a type who is 'against’,” says Jean Marsac, a prince of chansonniers who, together with Remi Reynaud, runs “La Lune Rousse” in Montmartre, and “Le Coucou” on the Grands Boulevards. “He is difficult to govern. He is not disobedient. But he must discuss things, and discuss them all the time. Above all, he discusses politics.” This discussion hts always been led by the chansonniers, with wit as their weapon, and no holds barred. They have been called the Frenchman’s safety valve. By tradition nothing and no-one is sacred to the chansonniers—and no Government has yet dared to gag them, however violent or embarrassing their shafts of satire and abuse.

The chansonnier—there are only about 30 of them in all—is a purely French institution. He thrives only in Paris and even there is confined to about half a dozen small, intimate theatres, mainly situated on Montmartre. But the whole nation listens to him gleefully on the radio and watches him on television. Radio and television are responsible for the present "golden age.” A few decades ago the chansonniers were virtually unknown outside Paris, and their audiences consisted of small, but faithful elite with intellectual leanings. Programmes were changed every month and the chansonnier could dip deeply into the rich poetry and literature of France for allusions, confident that his audience would see the point. Radio now serves up the chansonnier’s art for universal consumption, and many people think that the chansonnier is losing his intellectual “bite” in consequence. Programmes in the Montmartre establishments now run for a year at least, with only minor changes to keep up with events, or to wring dividends of ridicule from a newly-prominent name. Outrageous Irreverance Although it is probably true that the chansonniers have dropped down an intellectual peg or two in the last quarter-century to cater for popular taste, and have become a trifle more squeamish where delicate subjects are concerned, they still cling tenaciously to the principle that outrageous irreverance is not only their right but their duty. They usually start by insulting their audience. Late-comers run the gauntlet of a running commentary on their entry from the platform and woe betide the man who answers back! In most establishments the chansonniers come on in turn, delivering part of their act as satirical patter arid part as rhyming couplet to piano accompaniment. The

singing is often indifferent, since it is the words that count. There is no scenery. x Strangely enough, three topics foremost in French minds—General de Gaulle, Brigitte Bardot and Algeria—do not have much place in the chansonniers’ current programmes. Brigitte Bardot has already been played out as a theme, and the chansonniers are showing scruples over Algeria, because the tragic aspects of the Algerian situation and the passions which it arouses make it an unpromising target for fun. General de Gaulle’s popularity has protected him from the mishandling to which a President is usually subjected. Actually, a decree dating back to the 1930’s forbids chansonniers to make the French head of State, or any other head of State, the butt of their satire. The chansonniers ignore it, on the theory that heads of State are indulgent. Lumumba in Evidence Current favourite topics of the chansonniers are Nikita Khrushchev, de Gaulle’s atomic striking force, the rivalry in romantic affairs of the film director, Roger Vadim, Bardot’s former husband, and the singing guitarist, Sacha Distel, and Franco-German reconciliation. Mr Lumumba is also much in evidence, mainly because of his sonorous name. Few of the chansonnier’s songs are really translatable and foreigners are apt to miss the finer points of their wit unless they know the language very well indeed. Chansonniers come from varied walks of life. Many of them started as amateurs, and some abandoned lucrative professions to devote their lives to jokes and satire. Raymond Souplex was a bailiff, Noel Noel a poster artist, Pierre Gilbert a veterinary surgeon, and Rene Dorin has a law degree. Some began as straight actors or singers. But they have one thing in common—they compose their own lines. A minority consistently pursue their own political view but, no matter what Government is in power, the chansonniers as a body are opposed to it—as to everything else. They ruefully regret that most of the present French Ministers seem to have had an irreproachable past. Parliament is also duller, from the chansonnier’s point of view, than it used to be when it produced a new Prime Minister every few months and gave free reign to 17 parties.

The chansonniers are merciless when it comes to royal marriages or the romantic entanglements of film stars, and Mr ArmstrongJones has come in for a share of the chansonniers’ wit ever since it became known that Prin-

cess Margaret would marry a photographer. He is still a topranking target. Cardinal Mazarin, the Italian who became Louis XIII’s Prime Minister and was hated for the taxes he imposed, was mainly responsible for the chansonniers adopting the government, and the Finance Minister in particular, as the main subject of their satirical attacks. It was Cardinal Mazarin; too, who set the precedent for the immunity which the chansonniers have always enjoyed. He dismissed the flood of attacks on himself and his taxes with the remark: “As long as they are singing, they will pay."