Once, in the early 1950s...

At the age of 14, he was an indefatigable draftsman of Basque parents who had to move to Bordeaux. The golden age of drawing is a small childhood. Children don't draw to make art, but to tell us stories. In addition, these anecdotes live them as they fry. That's the essence of drawing. I'm sure you're a filmmaker, a newspaper or a comic book artist, and we're staying forever in this phase of evolution. In my house there were hardly any books, but there were no newspapers. I've been terribly nourished by teachers like Sempé and Chaval. At the age of 10, I was clear that I wanted to be a cartoonist. Cartoonist is the first word I've learned in English. I spent my day drawing. I would exercise myself by copying images from the press or from the comics. But most of the drawing professors at the Liceo rejected me, believing that I owed them more classic and conventional images. There I understood that Fine Arts would not satisfy me. So I've studied law and I'm a self-taught cartoonist.

Seeing how you entered Sud Ouest, I had more than a calling.

They were sweeter times. In the big newspapers there was no alarm, no insurance, and between the entrance and the director there were only a few filters. I made an appointment with the boss, got out of the high school and settled in front of the drawings manager. I showed him my drawings, but he didn't cast me. On the contrary, he opened the closet and explained to me what the drawing process of my idols Chaval and Sempé was like. I was stunned. Fifteen days later, I was back in the image folder that put what I learned into practice. I used to go very often, until at a time of weakness I was published a drawing. From there everything has gradually been going on. With today's eyes, it looks like science fiction. Now, nobody loses time with a young rookie, and the truth is that in the newspapers there's also an increasingly smaller and more well-known place for drawings. The humor cartoonists in the press are a species that we are about to disappear. In 1974, I got the card of a political draftsman. Since then, the number of journalists has multiplied by four and we are only six political draftsmen. There has been no development in function.

What is the role of your drawings?

It's another way of doing journalism. Some write, others film or portray, and I draw. Napoleon said that a small sketch is more effective than a long speech, and I am convinced that there is nothing better to pass an idea than a drawing of the press. However, the conventional journalist can develop a rational thought and bind a list of arguments, whether or not they agree, to show the origin of the vision. I don't. The drawing of the press does not support nuances, it is a crochet in the muzzle. This leaves you helpless, with far fewer resources to defend yourself, and forces you to the utmost responsibility. You can indicate anything through the drawing, but you must constantly measure the cold and heat of the context. For example, when the alleged perpetrator of the Tolosa massacre is surrounded at home, you have to draw tiptoe, with responsible prudence. When nobody knows anything, you can't create clouds based on hypotheses. Keeping this context in mind is the only way to get your ideas through. We are the translators of the collective reaction.

Is it difficult to admit that it can pave the way at any time?

The sense of prudence develops, but don't think about it, I still have the impression that I'm a political science student. I read several newspapers, cutting articles, archiving... It is essential for me to nurture a rigorous and judicious political culture. The experience and experience of a whole journey smoothes my way. Returning to the case of the killer of Tolosa, for example. Ten years ago I was in a situation very similar to that I had had ten years ago when, in front of my drawing board, a crazy entrepreneur murdered eight councillors in a sitting room. Imagine, I could repeat the drawing of the hour. Mine is a mechanics and a performance very similar to that of bertsolari. Now, I have a problem every day, and I, whether it's a good or a bad day, have to draw an answer each time. So I say that most of my job is to capture the idea and to draw the head. When the idea has occurred to me too soon and I am in time to finish the drawing, I am happy, and if not ... That's the gender law, that's what I get. If I had more time I would get bored and the need to create quickly keeps me awake and alive.

What relationship does it have with politics? What about politicians?

The degradation of politics, Americanization, is there. Nowadays, the smuggling of punctual reactions is much more than the clash of ideas. Therefore, it seems that it leaves a narrower space to the cartoonist, but this decadence is an inexhaustible treasure for the graphic satire. The tendency of power to create a new law in the face of any event, or the ridiculous declarations of lack of silence, leads us to constantly seek gold and gold. As far as the relationship with politicians is concerned, I put my head on the fact that a draftsman should not be too close to politicians. Politicians are, by definition, seductive, seductive. If you eat with a more or less good level leader, it will always leave you with a couple of phrases for the puzzle, and whether you want it or not, that shapes your work a lot. Punching them every day, and castrating them, doesn't mean I don't admire them. Quite the opposite. So I'd rather not zoom in. In addition, through my fellow journalists, I get their comments and my body. I will never forget what Bordeaux, during the time I was about to fall into the abyss of bankruptcy, the illustrious mayor of Chaban-Delmas, cast me: “Tell the mosquito to leave me alone, to paint another one.” What a most beautiful praise!

Can the mosquito pinch everything it wants?

In these 40 years, my freedom has been growing. When in 1974 I killed President Pompidou and started collaborating daily in the presidential campaign, there were suspicions, all my drawings went through the director's office. Little by little, they realized that I was a responsible journalist, and instead of deciding the directors, we started working with the editor's supervisor, until we got my space and gained my free space. Now, they're just calling me if there's a problem, and I'm telling them to post it. Why? Because I control very well the spirit of this free space. I know perfectly well that I can't draw sodomizing the pope, I don't know who. Charlie Hebdo is a cartoonist and provocative journalist, not Sud Ouest. Mine is another job, an editorial cartoon, and I haven't convinced myself that I'm working for a parish. I have in front of the readers who vote for Marine Le Pen from the far left. My drawing has to suggest something to everyone, and in this delicate exercise, I'm just a fisherman. I throw the hook, I try to fish the fish, but I can't break the thread before I get to land. So I don't think I'm self-spreading because I can't draw paternal sodomy. My style is different. I don't need to draw in front of Berlusconi, which extends the whistle from the nose to the liars. Everyone sees it even if it doesn't appear in the drawing.

Do you have the spirit of your free space and predict what your drawings will do?

Yes and no. For example, I once drew a white bear on the tip of an iceberg to the sailors of a boat telling them: “If I find work in the Pyrenees, I’m willing to dye myself in black!” I drew it one day that they talked about climate change, but because I didn't particularly like it, I kept it in the folder and sent another drawing. After some time, on a gray day, without any inspiration, the climate change was kept in its head, I had no choice but to convey that image. As far as things are concerned, this drawing will be one of the most praises I have ever been given. Other times, however, you already know that your smile is guaranteed. When I draw the Strauss-Khan galley with a hole smaller than the holes in my hands and my head, I know that the next day there will be a feast in the tavern. On the other hand, fortunately, I also notice strips that can give rise to hooks. For example, I personally brought to the drafting a couple on the Chaban-Delbas that I have already mentioned, rather than sending it by fax, because I knew perfectly well that they were thorny. Otherwise, I try to defend and take care of my position. I don't feel any love for Sarkozy, and even though he's trying to compose a hurry or a stupidity every day, I try to keep him from being beaten every day. If I did, my drawings would divide and I would lose my credibility. Every day I have only one idea, one bullet, and I have to choose who to play.

Given that we are in full electoral form, can you campaign?

As what is at stake in this campaign does not excite me especially, I draw on the campaign without campaigning. But in 2005, on the occasion of the referendum on the European Constitution, almost all French editorialists campaigned hard for the yes. I, on the contrary. It was very ridiculous what was happening in Sud Ouest. The publisher praised the "yes" as the clearest and clearest solution, and my drawings revealed that the "yes" was an exaggerated absurd.

What we must not forget is that the general and main press of today is no longer the opinion press, but the press that tries to reflect the plurality of opinions. That's why you have to constantly know where you stand. I work in a country that meets standards and has a code of humor. This does not justify the fact that the current drawing of the French press is, in general, scant and sad. Thank you to El Roto (El País) or the British who are eager. Yes, the English have a very eschatological sense of humor, and in the most serious newspapers also crap and pisa predominate. I could never draw that here. I want it or not, I work in Aquitaine, in the village of Montaigne, and Montaigne is characterised by the measure. That makes a lot of difference.

Given that Paris is the navel of France, is it more steep for those who decide to stay in Aquitaine the path of recognition?

Bordeaux does not exist for the Parisian people. I, too, took root in the logic that everyone has to make their country live by working in their own country, and in the early days I have paid very expensive for that choice. If you're not in Paris, you're no one, you're constantly despised, and that's very painful when you're young. It's very hard to understand why you're not more popular and popular than a Parisian, even if it's better than him. But when you stay in yours, fame and approval come to you from a drip. Sooner or later, talent triumphs. Moreover, I am a wrestler and I have not been afraid to put my virtues in that forest, where there is no law, other than that of Sud Ouest, the Paris press. I've worked for Le Monde, for Libération, or for Télérama, and although most of the time I've been upset, it's served to prove who I was. Once I had done this, I sent them to take a fresh wind, for I found myself perfectly in Sud Ouest, where many of my colleagues live enviing my freedom. I have just turned 66 years of discharge and it is clear to me that when the election campaign is over I will leave my drawing every day. I said aloud to those responsible for the newspaper: “I will continue in my ambition and other projects, but I retire with Sarkozy!” Yes, I will always draw it, but it is time for the sword of Damocles to be removed over the head.

A statement before withdrawal: Has it been easy for you to draw on the Basque conflict?

It has hurt me to draw on ETA. I've had two phases. Until the 1987 Hipercor attack, the doll was dancing in sympathy to ETA. Like many others, the struggle seemed to me noble, sincere and necessary. On the contrary, that attack was a decisive curve for me. I felt that the violence did not take us anywhere, my point of view on the subject changed radically, and I don't know if I would publish in the south some of the drawings that I've published in Sud Ouest. I recognize that some drawings made me very hard and very hard, but don't think I was having fun drawing. Every time there was an attack, I felt depressed, and I felt that what we gained along the path broken by the Catalans was much more profitable. It's not easy to draw about what made your heart so grim. That's why I tasted the ETA strip that took the hood off and removed the ETA painting. As for many other things, I also regret not having learned the Basque language, as those drawings would be much more effective and credible if they had been made in Basque.