FRENCH PEOPLE AND HUMOUR

"Tell me what makes you laugh, I'll tell you who you are. From Louis de Funès to Kad Merad, from Fernand Raynaud to Coluche, from Sempé to Cabu, from Jacqueline Maillan to Florence Foresti, or from Guy Bedos to Gad Elmaleh, French laughter and humor are indisputable markers of contemporary French identity, often far ahead of their time. Why do we laugh at a particular time? Who makes us laugh? What is the specificity of French humor? How does laughter tell us more about the country than many sterile debates? How do we laugh at ourselves? This is what the film intends to explore. Our national humor as it has evolved over the past fifty years, that is, since the beginning of the Fifth Republic, a period of half a century that corresponds to the most profound changes in French society. We see, theme by theme, how, from De Gaulle to Sarkozy, laughter has accompanied or preceded these changes. This tour breaks away from chronology and focuses on the "clash of words" at different periods by choosing sketches, caricatures, or film excerpts where humor deals with the French and their identity. We are not only interested in laughter for laughter's sake, but also in the image of the society it conveys. We will interview some of these humorists. Observers" of laughter and some of these comedians accompany us in a light-hearted (and not without humor) way through these different layers of the French identity of laughter.