"It's up to comedians to capture the spirit of the times to make it breathable"

• Every Friday,

  “20 Minutes”

  invites a personality to comment on a social phenomenon in his

  20 Minutes

  meeting with…

• Jérôme Commandeur talks about his meetings with an audience that allowed him to get to know our country and its inhabitants well.

• Benevolence is a key word in the way he envisages today's society, which he attacks without malice in his comedy “Irréductible”.

He made a name for himself on television with the

and

by Muriel Robin, on the radio as a columnist on Europe 1, on stage with

and in the cinema with his numerous collaborations with Dany Boon and

d 'Eric Lavaine who is currently triumphing on Netflix.

Today the comedian Jérôme Commandeur takes advantage of the release of the very funny,

, his second film after

, co-directed with Alan Corno, to talk to

of humor in France and France all short, two subjects he knows well thanks to his many tours.

Your film tells the adventures of a civil servant ready to do anything to keep his benefits when he is about to be fired… Do you have something against civil servants?

Nothing at all.

They are people who are deeply essential to make the collective work.

It is civil servants who exfiltrate us from Ukraine, who repair the pylons when there are natural disasters, who remove the snow when we want to go see our families at Christmas and in the forefront of which are the caregivers.

I carry them but I also say “hat and thank you”.

And I think I'm not the only one.

During the elections, the parties all agreed on this, to say that we need resources for the hospital, justice, education… We tended to behave like big babies but we have a lot evolved.

We no longer say that all of this is acquired.

At least the pandemic will have brought the idea that civil servants are essential people whose work must be respected.

Why do you laugh at them in this case?

To laugh and make people laugh!

We must not take away the right to spoof: we are in France.

We are the country of Molière, Alphonse Allais, Pierre Desproges, Coluche and Guy Bedos, these verb geniuses who liked to annoy their contemporaries.

We are the country of satire, of causticity, of the valve, of gauloiserie.

That's all I love about humor.

As long as it's benevolent, I like to think there's nothing to worry about.

I accept my friends teasing me about my weight and my failures at the movies because they don't mean it badly.

I believe that the public has enough sensitivity to understand that.

I'm not laughing against, but with...

To those who say that we can no longer laugh at anything, what do you answer?

It is a nostalgic, but truncated, analysis of an era to think that we could laugh at everything in the past.

Pierre Desproges had great difficulty placing his shows on TV.

The jokes of the Petit rapporteur

a satirical program hosted by Jacques Martin under Giscard, made the producers in control tremble because they were afraid of the fallout from the government.

It wasn't easy for them either.

In fact, the phrase "We can laugh at everything, but not with anyone" is very true.

I would add: “Not everyone can laugh at everything”.

What qualities do you think are required to make you laugh?

A comedian must have charm and seduce the public as for a speed dating, otherwise he will not entertain.

This is what Valérie Lemercier and Alain Chabat nicely call “Treat the case” because the box enhances the ring.

That being said, I believe that anything can be laughed at in a theater.

For almost twenty-five years that I have been doing this job as a comedian, no one has ever come to tell me that I was going too far.

The public comes to see comedians to put their fingers in the socket, to shake and clear their heads.

Does humor have to be committed?

Of course it is, because you don't write in a cave far from the Internet and the news of the world.

We work in an environment.

We follow the news and discuss it with our friends and family.

In a few years, we got hit by three TGVs with global warming, wars and the pandemic.

It is normal, even essential, that all of this be reflected in comedies.

This does not prevent the schoolboy side or even a little "big hooves".

When I swing a valve like "Today I got up at dawn" with a shot on a clock that shows 11:30 a.m., I'm not doing the lace, I'm aware of that, but my film goes further than that if you want to find something else there.

A reflection on disobedience and downgrading, for example.

It can also be taken as a guignolade.

It's the public's choice.

People don't need artists to think, to tell them to go left or right.

Isn't it a bit opportunistic to surf on social phenomena?

It is the work of comedians to capture the spirit of the times to make it breathable.

For me,

, these are the French in which I include myself first and foremost.

We always take the roundabout the wrong way, but it's the others who haven't understood the meaning of the roundabout.

We are always grumpy even if we may have good reasons to be.

In each region, we are told: “Be careful, people here are not easy to get to, but once you have won their trust, it's for life”.

I heard that everywhere!

It seems to be a national character trait but once you have said that, we are also the country of Abbé Pierre and Coluche.

This mosaic of contradictory things is the wealth of the French.

It defines the people I have met for twenty-five years.

The man that I am too.

Why do you think you know France well?

I know that we often imagine artists as above-ground sores.

But this is a misconception.

Those who tour like me have the opportunity to meet many people and talk to them.

I spend my life with night watchmen, drivers on motorway service areas, train controllers, restaurateurs.

We are constantly in contact with people and that probably enriches me as a comedian and certainly as a man.

I called my film

in homage to Asterix but also because it defines us very well.

As in

, we hit on each other (figuratively of course!) but we end up meeting at the time of the banquet.

Did France seem divided to you during your travels?

I wouldn't put it that way.

I would rather see her as lonely, lost.

I have memories of people saying to me “Thank you for being here, thank you for coming to see us” with their eyes shining with tears and I felt their emotion in the room.

There is this feeling that the world turns without you.

The one that there is like a kind of turbine that works and that you are in front of it, watching it without being able to react to the violence of the movement.

It's terrible to see what's going on in the world and there are a lot of people feeling helpless, like they weren't invited to the party.

This is what I noticed above all: the fact that many French people had the feeling of being left behind.

Do you see yourself entering politics?

I'm not a politician and I certainly don't want to be, but the lack of connection is obvious.

This is what I feel about the country and what, in my opinion, should be considered more.

Very modestly, I try to bring my stone to the building.

I include people.

I like the idea that we don't know each other but maybe we can go for a drink together.

I try to be kind, to take the time to talk to people.

I am especially amazed by the maturity of the young people who ask very precise questions and seem more mature than I was at their age.

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“Irreducible” Jérôme Commandeur

The comedian received a well-deserved Grand Prix from the Alpe d'Huez Festival for

, a very amusing comedy that finds its place between tenderness and ferocity, inspired by an Italian film,

by Gennaro Nunziante.

Jérôme Commandeur recounts the adventures of a civil servant ready to do anything to keep his advantages while his hierarchical superior (Pascale Arbillot) tries to disgust him by mutating him in the most unlikely places.

He will even go to Greenland where he will find love in the guise of Laëtitia Dosch.

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