A CONTROVERSIAL French satirist, whose caustic send-ups provoked the ire of leading politicians, has been sacked by the public radio station France Inter.
Stéphane Guillon was told by the station that his contract would not be renewed, despite his slot on the flagship current affairs show attracting two million listeners every morning.
His scathing daily segment had drawn protests from politicians on the left and right for straying over the line between comedy and personal abuse.
President Nicolas Sarkozy once called his sketches nasty and insulting.
In an interview with Le Monde, Jean-Luc Hees, chief executive of the Radio France group, which runs France Inter, insisted the decision arose not from "any political pressure, but from a need for basic values of politeness and public service to be respected".
“If humour is reduced to insults, I cannot tolerate it for others, nor for myself,” Mr Hees said, adding that he could not accept “being spat on” through Guillon’s segment. One of the comedian’s more pointed pieces was about Mr Hees being nominated to his position by Mr Sarkozy last year.
In his final broadcast for the station on Wednesday, Guillon spoke of “a total liquidation of satirists”, referring to the simultaneous sacking of Didier Porte, another of the station’s resident comics.
Speculation about Guillon’s future intensified in March, when a comic diatribe about immigration minister Eric Besson caused the station to issue a public apology. As Mr Besson waited outside the studio to be interviewed on the current affairs programme, Guillon tore into him with trademark ruthlessness.
He described the minister, a former Socialist who led a recent debate on national identity, as “the Mata Hari of politics”, a long-time “mole” for Jean-Marie Le Pen’s far-right party who had infiltrated the government to do his bidding.
Mr Besson was ideal for the job, he mocked, with “his disagreeable physique, the weasel eyes, his receding chin, the real profile of Iago, ideal for betrayal”. The minister said the segment was racist.
In one of his most famous skewerings, the comedian last year took aim at Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, who was about to give his first French radio interview since causing a scandal by admitting he had an affair with a woman on his staff.
“In a few minutes, Dominique Strauss-Kahn will penetrate . . . this room,” Guillon began. “Obviously, exceptional measures have been taken . . . Female members of staff have been ordered to wear long, dark outfits, totally anti-sex. Leather, high heels and chic underwear have been forbidden.”
The woman assigned to greet Mr Strauss-Kahn wore a burka, Guillon claimed. Mr Strauss-Kahn was visibly shaken when he went on air a few minutes later.
Commenting on Mr Guillon’s removal, Socialist Party leader Martine Aubry, who was among his many targets, defended the comedian’s “right to engage in mockery”. François Bayrou, leader of the centrist MoDem party, said “democracy needs comedians, even if they sometimes go too far”.