Paris (AFP)

Plantu, historical designer for the daily Le Monde, will put down his pencil on March 31, ending a collaboration of nearly 50 years with the newspaper, in a context heckled by the recent departure of Xavier Gorce, another house designer.

The cartoonist announced that he would retire shortly after his 70th birthday.

A decision which "has nothing to do" with the controversy around the cartoonist Xavier Gorce, "he told AFP. The latter left Le Monde with a crash on Wednesday, criticizing the daily for having yielded to the pressure of social networks by apologizing for having published one of his drawings, deemed shocking by many Internet users.

"On March 31, explained Plantu, I will be replaced by drawings from Cartooning for peace, the association I created with Kofi Annan 15 years ago," and, depending on the news, there will be "an American, Russian, Venezuelan, Algerian drawing".

This solution was agreed upon with the director of Le Monde, Jérôme Fénoglio.

"It's been ten years since I asked the director of Le Monde to replace me," said this ardent activist for freedom of opinion.

The person concerned explains for his part to AFP having prepared with the designer, whom he describes as a "monument of the newspaper", his departure "long upstream" in order to mark the "very strong" commitment of the daily to the renewal of the press cartoon.

In particular by highlighting "young female talents" in a very masculine environment.

This collaboration with "Cartooning for peace" will also make it possible "to develop international views on current affairs, to vary the angles", adds Mr. Fenoglio.

- "Interpreter" of the news -

Until now Jean Plantureux - by his real name - sketched the news every day with a pencil willingly mocking and offbeat, often bringing together several highlights of the day in a unique humorous light.

"Some mornings, I have so little inspiration that I have dark thoughts", he confided in 2018 to AFP, to the point of "drawing me, a stone around my neck, before throwing myself to the bottom a basin of water ".

This did not prevent the designer from being prolific - with 14,000 drawings to his credit - mainly for Le Monde but also for around forty other publications.

In 2019, he entrusted most of his collection of drawings to the National Library of France (BnF), consisting of 20,000 pieces and 500 original drawings.

In his first drawing on October 1, 1972 in Le Monde, Plantu bit a small dove with a question mark in his beak, indicating his perplexity as to a peace agreement that would end the American conflict in "Indochina".

Plantu was unaware then that his dove would become a real signature.

In the mid-90s, the artist will nest in his drawings another trademark: a little mouse, a reflection of his moods.

Sometimes mischievous, moving, biting, angry, Plantu, who over the years has become a press cartoon superstar, spares no subject, sometimes at the cost of heated controversy.

- Activist for freedom of opinion -

The assassination of his fellow Charlie Hebdo colleagues on January 7, 2015, strengthens the designer in his commitment to freedom of expression, which he "will now pursue, in France and around the world, in schools, hospitals, public places".

Through his association Cartooning for Peace and with the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), Plantu is leading a campaign for press cartoons to be recognized by Unesco as a fundamental human right.

“Humor and disturbing images are part of our democracies,” he repeated in 2019 in Le Monde, after the New York Times decision to ban political cartoons from its international editions.

Plantu explained that he supported Xavier Gorce "mordicus".

"I love his style. We must campaign for the shift (in humor). Seriousness is invading us, it's the cholera of the imagination," said the designer, repeating a sentence that he said the recently deceased comedian Guy Bedos.

© 2021 AFP