Mouna

Aguigui Mouna, whose real name was André Dupont, was born on October 1, 1911, in Meythet, Haute-Savoie, into a modest family marked by odd jobs and precarious employment. Early on, he rejected authority after a brief stint in the Navy and his expulsion from the Communist Party, which led him down a personal path blending pacifism, a libertarian spirit, and a biting sense of humor.

In the 1950s, after several professional setbacks on the French Riviera and in Paris, he "invented" the character of Aguigui Mouna, a libertarian, philosophical tramp who decided to make the street his stage. Based primarily in Paris, he became a familiar figure in the Latin Quarter and the Beaubourg district, riding a brightly colored bicycle, his half-beard and half-mustache serving as a permanent manifesto. He harangues passersby against war, militarism, nuclear power, and consumer society, wielding slogans, puns, and aphorisms at the crossroads of humor and meditation.

Mouna is involved in numerous cau...