The humorist Guillaume Meurice, in the presidential campaign, stops in Vallet

How did you come up with the idea for this show, “Guillaume Meurice 2022”?

The presidential election is rather topical. So the idea came to me to make a pastiche of a political rally. And then I find this beginning of the campaign scary, I prefer to laugh about it.

They all run right, even the PS. It becomes caricatural, this race for votes, for example by saying that a veiled woman is more serious than precariousness. Either it's cynicism or it's stupidity if those are really their beliefs. But I fear that there is less and less cynicism – which I find more problematic.

On stage, you reproduce the atmosphere of a meeting…

I have a campaign clip, music, a program, a lectern, the blue-white-red flag – all Republican protocol. It's always the same imagery, whatever the party, whatever the candidate. So it's easy to make a pastiche of it.

I even have the dark suit and the square-end tie – the first time I saw one it was Ciotti wearing it. No doubt to distinguish themselves from businessmen…

Politicians have taken up the codes of the show so much for their meetings that it is a small revenge to bring these codes back into the world of the show!

Is it easy to caricature a political world that sometimes lapses into caricature?

Indeed, the reality is from time to time even more caricatural than the spectacle. The other day, I heard that the Minister of Justice has launched an experiment in the use of virtual reality, with a helmet, in the treatment of perpetrators of domestic violence. I thought it was the Gorafi! But no. I would not have dared to put that in my show. Reality exceeds fiction.

What measures do you propose during your “meeting”?

You have to go there to know my program! Come on, here's one of my proposals: sponsor the police. Sometimes I tell myself that in a few years, some of my proposals could really be taken up by politicians. But I'm not sure I would be flattered. It would even be rather creepy.

What type of candidate are you?

I am the candidate of post-macronism. I go even further than the "neither right nor left": I want to be the candidate who rallies from the far left to the far right. I want to gather all the convictions. My watchword in this show: reconciliation and audacity. My slogan: the future of the France of the future

Campaign slogans, that too is threadbare. With always the same words that come back: France, reunite, unity – they have gone around.

With this show, you have to constantly keep up with current events…

In terms of topicality, a joke can quickly go out of date. So, there are some that I remove, others that I add. I try new things. The show is constantly evolving, even if the frame remains the same. I also like to play with the public. And add elements of local policy. Before a show, I learn in the afternoon about local political life to incorporate elements into the show. I even added a song during a show.

Is the lifespan of this show conditioned on the duration of the presidential campaign?

I'm going to play it until the presidential election and afterwards, it will just be enough to adapt it a little: Meurice 2027! The news is a great reservoir of ideas. And even if, ultimately, the themes are always the same, it has new faces, new angles...

If you were really elected President of the Republic, what would be your first step?

Personally, if I were really elected, I would hold a referendum for a new constitution – the Sixth Republic, but the term is now overused, everyone wants a Sixth Republic. Then I would quit. With this new constitution, the senate would be made up of citizens drawn by lot, the blank vote would be taken into account…, in short, it would be a question of restoring democracy to everyone. Today, we are trapped by the system, we cannot change it: we have to replace it.

But before all that, where are you with your sponsorships?

I have a promise of sponsorship (as of September 29, editor's note), from a departmental councilor from Picardy. I have 499 left, but I feel a dynamic, the Meurice dynamic! I'm confident. I even have the support of Biden, Putin, Kim Jong-un *: there too I bring together extremes. Besides, my next show could be global reconciliation!

* “I have never met such a charismatic man”, Joe Biden; “He is the one France needs”, Vladimir Poutine; “I believe in him”, Kim Jong-un, can we read on the website of Guillaume Meurice.

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