Siné

Actor · born 31 December 1928 · Paris, France

Maurice Sinet, known as Siné, is one of the leading figures of French satirical cartooning, renowned for his dark humor, fierce anticlericalism, and radical political commitments. His life was inextricably linked to a passion for drawing, jazz, and anti-colonial activism.

Maurice Albert Sinet was born in Paris, in a working-class neighborhood in the east of the city, at the end of 1928, into a modest family. His father was an artistic blacksmith and his mother a grocer. He grew up between Belleville, Ménilmontant, Barbès, and Pigalle, which instilled in him from a very young age a critical perspective on social inequality. At fourteen, he entered the École Estienne, studying drawing and model making while earning a living at night as a singer in cabarets. His time in the military, often spent in solitary confinement, reinforced his rejection of the army, the state, and imposed discipline.

Where to start: Jean-Jacques de Félice, The Passion For Justice (2018).