The morning and the closure were well advanced, the “one” too. There was only this little white box, this desperately empty rectangle: the place of the drawing. The only thing missing was him on the side that suddenly seemed a bit dull: Plantu, his stroke and, above all, his gaze. When the news was busy, there was little to worry about. His pencil would know how to bring it back to its exact proportion, pour emotion into drama, put a light smile or a gleeful laugh on the wounds of the world and the faults of the country. But when the news was quiet and dull as a rainy day, we worried about him. How would he get out of there today? Finally the phone rang. “Hello, this is John. I sent you my drawings. Because he sent us several every day, up to six, with the grace to let us decide. And every time it was the same surprise and very often the same difficult decision.
It has been the same daily ritual for almost fifty years since that first drawing on October 1, 1972, of a pigeon during the Vietnam War. Plantu would soon take the “One”. He first did it in secret in 1978, then every Saturday from 1982 to 1985, when the publication’s director at the time, André Fontaine, decided that the Plantu would be on the pediment of the world. Great honor and heavy burden, which he will fill with talent for the happiness of readers, kindness and humility for the delight of those who knew him.
These thousands of drawings will eventually form a gigantic kaleidoscope that will traverse contemporary history and form part of the world’s identity. As a familiar landmark in the changing landscape of our “Ones,” as well as a factor of slight disorder in the so-calculated hierarchy of our titles. Irreplaceable Plantu that had to be replaced…
taste of nuances
This “post-plantu”, Jean has often evoked with the successive directors of the newspaper. With the conviction that the press cartoon at Le Monde could neither summarize nor end with him.
Between continuity and the imperative of renewal, the solution logically went through Cartooning for Peace, the international collective founded by Plantu almost twenty years ago, which today brings together more than 250 cartoonists. The association sends us a selection of cartoons four times a week, from which the editors make a selection for the front page.
With this unprecedented partnership, we have thus contributed both to the rejuvenation and feminization of a profession that is still very masculine. “Drawing for Peace”: The association’s name could be a stretch because the Plantu pigeons were sometimes mocked. Given the ferments of the Civil War, that name never seemed more relevant to us. It connects to our vocation to combat the taste for nuance, the sense of complexity, the confrontation of viewpoints with all the forces that threaten to destroy our society.
From these nearly twenty thousand signed Plantu drawings, spanning fifty years, we have extracted for this special edition with difficulty – again a difficult choice – fifty that we believe represent the best tribute to a man unwilling to put his Pencil gone…
“Plantu in “Le Monde”. 50 years, 50 drawings”, a special edition of “Le Monde”, 98 pp. , €9.50, available from October 27th on newsstands and on Lemonde.fr.
PLANTU / “THE WORLD”