Through two decades and three presidents, the French have been laughing at their politicians, with the most powerful often drawing the biggest guffaws.
A show that uses puppets to parody presidents, ministers and other notables in France and abroad in biting, sometimes off-color skits, is celebrating 20 years on air Monday night with a five-hour TV gala. That's 4,000 programs, which have made "Les Guignols de l'Info" (The News Puppets) a French institution and given them a place in popular culture.
So popular is the show that having an alter-ego puppet to bash a politician's real-life image once a week is seen as practically a compliment.
"Without sounding like a masochist, it's refreshing to watch," Xavier Bertrand, chief of President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative party, the UMP, was quoted as saying by the daily Le Parisien.
Some of the figures regularly skewed by the puppets were used to publicize Monday's event in street posters and full-page newspaper ads.
"Damn, it's tonight," says a grave-faced Chirac in one ad.
"I demand you stop this show," orders a haughty-looking Edouard Balladur, a former prime minister taunted by the press for his princely image.
"It's a principle that dates back several centuries: to make fun of the powerful is good for everyone," Yves Le Rolland, the show's artistic director since 1995, says on the Web site of the weekly Nouvel Observateur. "Humor is by definition cruel."
Few are spared, from former President George W. Bush, portrayed as a simple-minded child, to Osama bin Laden, plotting attacks with cohort Mullah Omar, recently wearing an explosive belt stocked with shoes to mimic the Iraqi TV journalist who tossed his shoes at Bush.
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