In 40 years of existence, this one-of-a-kind newspaper is about to issue its eleventh issue: “La Bougie du Sapeur”, a journalistic curiosity that comes out every February 29, has decided to rejuvenate its team to secure a future.
With its twenty pages of puns, puns, real and fake interviews, naughty tickets and more or less serious comments on the news of the last four years, “La Bougie du Sapeur”, on newsstands as of Friday, intends to defend “politically incorrect”.
In one of these issues with the red and black model, a paper on the rooster Maurice, a title announcing the return of the late Thierry Le Luron, another on the use of English in times of Brexit and Helene’s interviews Darroza, Cedric Villani and Philippe Chevallier.
“The main headings are those of a daily newspaper that we find systematically: political life, economic life, international life and then the more you advance in the newspaper, the lighter you have subjects: entertainment, sport, and the icing on the cake for a newspaper which has our frequency, we obviously have a page “Last minute”, “details its editor, the earthy Vicomte Jean d’Indy.
This year, his wife Valerie Vrinat, former owner of the Taillevent group (cellar and gourmet restaurant), took up the feather to recommend “20 wines for 2020”.
The newspaper, born from a joke in 1980, was named “La Bougie du Sapeur” in reference to a comic book character created at the end of the 19th century, the Sapeur Camember, whose birthday fell on February 29.
One of these new recruits, Melchior Riant, a 25-year-old journalist who works for Technikart and whose father is a friend of Jean d’Indy’s, appreciates “the freedom of your tone”, “the editorial conferences that take place at the restaurant and with good wine. “
“I hope that the people who read it will renew themselves. It is important that younger people participate, we were able to compare the points of view of two generations who have not had the same lives,” he continues.
– “Gallic humor” –
“The candle is a conservatory of Gallic humor. There are puns, more or less, counterfeits, there are all forms of humor in the French tradition, we have to have it perpetuates and therefore we have to ask young people to immerse themselves in our universe and extend what we have built, “underlines Jean d’Indy.
After the “Sapper Sunday”, the “Sapper Madame” and “The Candle of the zapper”, this year a supplement “Green sapper” is offered, “our concession to modernity”, taunts the editor.
“I am in the ecology notebook because I say in my gallery that perhaps one of the answers to the ecological problem is not the sustainable but on the contrary the ephemeral, the simple pleasures, the fact of dying early, “says his young recruit, a bit provocative.
Another concession to the modern world, a Facebook page that allows the title to keep in touch with its readers, mainly collectors and natives of February 29.
With a circulation of 200,000, the newspaper is sold at a price of 4.80 euros in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland. The number 10 had sold 130,000 copies.
Sales allow this newspaper without advertising to finance its next issue. He also donates part of his income to the association “A tire d’aile”, which supports people with autism and epilepsy.
