Three Years of Cartoons about François Hollande

(Rémy Molinari)

François Hollande has been President of France for three years. Lest you think that all French cartoonists are focused on making fun of fundamentalist Muslims, Hollande has been taking it square in the face, too. In an image comparable to U.S. President Gerald Ford's falls down airplane stairs, Hollande has been indelibly associated with rain since the day of his inauguration, when he was doused in a downpour, and rain is a regular theme in the cartoons about him. Aurélia Vertaldi looks at some of the memorable ones (François Hollande: trois ans de caricatures, May 6) for Le Figaro (my translation):

Our president's marital escapades are not left out. The revelation of his liaison with the actress Julie Gayet by the gossip press would lead to the stormy separation between Hollande and Valérie Trierweiler [his conjugal partner and First Lady of France until 2014]. There is also the Marche Républicaine in January 2015, when a pigeon defecated on his shoulder. Everything is a reason for laughter.

Translation: [Angela Merkel] "It's raining, François" [Hollande] "Yes, it's raining, Angela... at least on that point we are in agreement." This cover by Luz for Charlie Hebdo, where Hollande's penis realizes it is President of France, is also a winner, as is the Les Guignols music video to the tune of Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines, with the refrain "Gné hé hé" in response to all of France's problems, a simple-minded laugh that sums up Hollande's public persona.