Q: Still, I’m not religious at all, but as godfather to my nephew I bring him toys and I call, and I wonder if Mr. Le Pen does the same.
A: I’m not sure. She’s only one. I think most people saw it for what it was: a very provocative humoristic performance.
Q: You are a virtuoso at marketing yourself.
A: You learn it.
Q: You say the whole thing with Le Pen was a joke, but it wasn’t perceived that way in the French media. Was that your intention?
A: You have to properly bait the media, otherwise you don’t get good buzz.
Q: I wonder if you are going to get Hugo Chávez to be another godfather to one of your children, just to piss more people off.
A: That would be less probable, I think, because I’m more in line with Chávez politically. It would be less shocking.
Q: The Wall Street Journal recently said you’ve gone from being a leftist extremist to the extreme right. I take it that your intention is to confuse everyone.
A: I don’t know if it’s to confuse. It’s more to start debates, to make people question themselves.
Q: In December you brought out Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson on stage and presented him with an award for “social unacceptableness and insolence,” given tohim by someone dressed up as an Auschwitz prisoner. Why on earth would you do that?
A: At that point I was preparing another show for which I needed explosive material. Le Pen was done, and I needed something even better. And the most untouchable was Faurisson. He is a person who denies history. So the award seemed appropriate.
Q: So you were playing a joke on Faurisson.
A: Yes. He denies the existence of the person who is giving him an award, and yet he’s getting the award. But I invited him because I’m very attached to the concept of freedom of expression. And again, I got the reaction I was looking for. There was a wave of indignation.
Q: So you are still playing the idiot, then.
A: Of course! It’s a living.
Q: So is it safe to say that your entrance into politics is an extension of your comedy?
A: Look, Sarkozy has shown that you can be an idiot and a politician at the same time, so why not me?
Q: Everything about your campaign is based on anti-Zionism.
A: The Zionist movement is extremely strong, and we need to challenge it.
Q: You seem to be a bit obsessed. What other than anti-Zionism is there in your platform?
A: It’s the hope that Europe positions itself beyond the American-NATO axis. Like Hugo Chávez, it’s a move toward the real left. It is a movement against colonization, for a better distribution of riches, which outlaws any sort of ethnic discrimination.
Q: The French authorities are trying to ban you from running. In doing so, you received more attention.
A: Yeah, the person who said I should be banned was Sarkozy’s spokesperson, Claude Guéant. He said it on a Jewish community radio station. I now call him my press attaché.
Q: It’s like another one of your shows.
A: I knew this would happen.
Q: I understand why they are mad at you, but why try to ban you from running? I think your ideas are malformed and idiotic, but I defend your right to run in an election.
A: There you go. I don’t think my thoughts are idiotic, but I accept that you don’t have to agree with me. I disagree with what Zionists are doing to France, I think it is a very hateful and narrow-minded movement, but I would never try to ban them. That would be giving them free publicity.
