PARIS, June 23 (Reuters) - French satire is no laughing matter.
France’s main public radio station said on Tuesday it was dumping two humorists whose breakfast-time commentaries on the news irked President Nicolas Sarkozy and infuriated his immigration minister.
Radio France president Jean-Luc Hees said dawn jesters Stephane Guillon and Didier Porte would not be returning to the airwaves after the summer break and the five-minute humour slot before the 8 a.m. France Inter news would be abolished.
"If humour boils down to insults, I can’t tolerate that, either for others or for myself," Hees told the daily Le Monde.
"Humour mustn’t be confiscated by little tyrants. I am taking this decision not because of any political pressure out of minimum standards of education and public service," he said, adding that Sarkozy and his staff had never complained to him.
However, Immigration Minister Eric Besson filed complaints after Guillon likened the former Socialist politician to a wartime collaborator with the Nazis, and contrasted his relationship with a young Tunisian woman to a government crackdown on alleged marriages of convenience.
Guillon made a bitter joke of his eviction in his final broadcast on Wednesday. Parodying the radio’s slogan "France Inter, listen to the difference", he quipped: "France Inter, listen to the indifference."
