It is a highly anticipated moment this Monday: the municipal council of Saint-Étienne meets at 2:30 p.m. One month to the day after the release of the first Mediapart article which revealed the existence of a stolen intimate video and evoked a supposed case of blackmail financed by public funds. Two demonstrations are planned in front of the town hall on Monday at 2 p.m. and then at 5:30 p.m. with political speeches. In addition to these political meetings and demonstrations, the affair has seen, from its beginnings, multiple diversions, caricatures, photo-montages, not without scathing humor and derision, featuring the face of Gaël Perdriau.
“We are a popular city so we like to make fun of the boss, we like to make fun of the powerful, the politician. Laughter is also militant.”
We also saw posters in the streets showing the mayor of Saint-Étienne dancing on a table and this title: “Invitation for the farewell party of Gaël Perdriau and his clique”, posters that make many Stéphanois laugh, like Bérangère. “A leaving drink is always nice… It’s also a nice way to laugh about all that. Certainly behind it, it’s not so much fun for people and there’s disappointment and things to claim but for once it’s interesting.”
– Mathilde Montagnon
Humor and creativity
Misappropriation of photos, puns, memes on the Internet, mockery, derision, caricature, the case stirs up the creativity of Internet users, multiplied by social networks where everything is like, to be shared, to be commented on. There is this Facebook page called “Forézien Maoist Committee in support of our mayor Gaël Perdriau”. Laughter is cathartic explains one of its administrators. “At the time of Godard’s death, to see Gaël Perdriau on the body of Brigitte Bardot with the mark ‘Le contempt’, it makes us laugh. We belittle these people who scandalized us a little, we make fun of the powerful. It’s the spirit of Saint-Etienne, being clumsy, irreverent. We are a popular city so we like to make fun of the boss, we like to make fun of the powerful, the politician. Laughter is also militant.”
Some humorous diversions on social networks
