When humor prevails over political speech

As the boundaries between information, entertainment and politics blur, laughter takes center stage. Humor seems to fill the void left by political speech losing credibility. What does this move reveal about the state of the democratic debate? What does democracy gain (and lose) when laughter claims not only to denounce, but also to change reality?

“In twenty years of peace activism, I have influenced twenty people. With a joke about a dictator, twenty million.”

These words are those of Noam Shuster-Eliassi, an Israeli comedian who “entered into humor like others into politics” after having abandoned demonstrations and activism at the United Nations for song and committed stand-up. Does humor enable the renewal of politics?

Relations between the two spheres remain stormy. This is evidenced by the recent complaint from the Ministry of the Interior Laurent Nuñez against the comedian Pierre-Emmanuel Barré (for having compared, in a column on police violence, the police to Daesh) and the new industrial tribunal trial of the comedian Guillaume Meurice, who contests the early termination of his contract by his ex-employer France Inter following a joke about Benjamin Netanyahu.

These controversies are not isolated: we can also cite that on the clothing appearance during a sketch on France 5 by the comedian Merwane Benlazar (accused of Islamism because of his look) or the controversies surrounding the comedian Sophia Aram, accused of “racism” by journalists from Parisian following a column in which she mocked members of the Gaza-bound flotilla, MEP Rima Hassan (nicknamed “Lady Gaza”) and activist Greta Thunberg (renamed “Miss Krisprolls”).

If these controversies are not new, as linguist Nelly Quemener points out, they seem to take on a new dimension: Guillaume Meurice’s joke, discussed in the National Assembly and the Senate, thus provoked more reactions than certain serious positions taken by political leaders.

Spheres less and less watertight

The political and humorous spheres continue to overlap. Media discursive devices, which increasingly play on “infotainment” (the intersection of information andentertainmententertainment), very often intersect with journalistic, political and humorous speeches. It is common to see politicians, experts, artists and comedians gathered around a stage, so much so that we no longer know what discursive regime this or that intervention participates in.

A typical example is the show “Quotidien” by Yann Barthès, presented as “a great information session which combines humor and impertinence.” Social networks contribute to this mixture of genres by bouncing, with jokes, on information serious. These jokes can create a buzz and then be relayed by traditional media.

Political speech and humorous political speech are intertwined to the point that it is no longer always easy to distinguish them. Who hasn’t had the experience of laughing at a title from Gora then to be frightened when, a few days later, the information a priori burlesque has become reality? The indistinction gave rise to a hashtag, #pasgorafi, to designate information which appears to be jokes but which is not. Do Trump’s relatives obediently wear shoes from the President of the United States’ favorite brand, even when they are too big for them? Clownesque but #notgorafi.

What do we project onto political humor?

On the public side, the devaluation of political speech, which can appear more and more empty and stereotypical (what we call “talking”) can go hand in hand with a tendency to transfer frustrated expectations onto other types of speech. We then look for politics everywhere… except in political institutional discourses.

It can be scientific speech, when researchers are called upon to find a solution to political problems or must carry out political alert work in the face of the deafness of certain leaders, as was the case with pesticides and the Duplomb law. We also think of journalistic speech: it is sometimes very difficult to draw the line between the speech of an editorialist and the speech of a professional politician. Finally, this is the case of humorous speech.

When political speech is disavowed, when it appears non-existent or void, political humor can end up being perceived not as a discourse which intersects with politics, which can serve it or on the contrary criticize it, but as the incarnation of political speech. The effect, sometimes very real, of this humor which can tease or even destabilize the power in place can then be confused with a political capacity to change the order of things.

The impossible balance of comedians

Faced with this situation, comedians are in an even more uncomfortable situation as they can be sanctioned, as Nelly Quemener recalls, “from above” (by institutions, such as Arcom), but also challenged “from below” (by the public, particularly on social networks).

Caught between contradictory injunctions, these comedians adopt an ambiguous discourse. Some will claim “political” humor but while rejecting the label of “partisan” or “militant” humor. Comedian Fary insists on the importance of not taking himself for a “spokesperson” and prefers to define his show as a more “poetic” than political moment. Very few comedians take responsibility for putting their political commitment first (Sophia Aram declares that she takes responsibility for being “less and less funny”, but this is an exception).

Guillaume Meurice signs a good number of left-wing petitions, but when La France insoumise (LFI) offered him his nomination to run for legislative elections in June-July 2024, he reacted by declaring, on social networks,

“La République, ce n’est pas moi!”

(an ironic allusion to the words of Jean-Luc Mélenchon).

When we analyze the metadiscourse of comedians on their practices, we notice that the same people who claim political humor and who, to defend it, can lend it many virtues (pedagogical, democratic, cathartic) will also take care to reject the posture of the “lesson giver” or even of someone who believes they can act on reality through laughter.

In an interview with Mondecomedian Charline Vanhoenacker declares both that political humor is a means of “reversing the relationship of domination” and that it should not be “overinterpreted[r]”, because he would have no other intention than to “make people laugh”. Charline Vanhoenacker attempts both to defend her practice (and its usefulness) and to protect herself (knowing that she was, among other things, questioned by the judicial police following Guillaume Meurice’s joke) by deflating her claims.

Don’t reduce humor or politics

The critical force of humor no longer needs to be demonstrated. Political irony can thus make it possible to question and reconsider dominant political discourses by putting them at a distance. But we must not reduce political discourse to humor or irony. The relief or admiration felt in front of a well-placed valve should not push us to renounce the debate, the contestation and the reasoned proposition.

It is moreover this balance between humor and political seriousness that many programs seek to achieve which are rarely only humorous, which alternate between moments of cathartic humor and listening to analyzes or proposals from a non-comedian guest.

Political humor can be a step, a means. But if it becomes an end, it risks turning into playfulness, which makes all speech a game, or cynicism, which points out the inadequacies of each speech. Derision can become a temptation: it then reduces the world to a set of absurd discourses and places us in a disillusioned and disengaged position vis-à-vis reality. Instead of helping us confront politics, it leads to deserting it.

Laélia Véron is co-author, with Guillaume Fondu, of Are you serious? Political problems of irony, The Discovery, 2026.