Jacques Faizant, 87; Editorial Cartoonist’s Work Ran in Le Figaro

Jacques Faizant, 87, a French editorial cartoonist whose work was a fixture in the newspaper Le Figaro for more than four decades, died Saturday in a Paris hospital of unspecified causes.

Faizant contributed more than 30,000 cartoons to Le Figaro before failing health forced him to retire late last year.

His work caricatured French leaders from Gen. Charles de Gaulle to President Jacques Chirac. Calling Faizant a close friend, Chirac praised him in a statement as an “enlightened and incisive observer of political life” and said the cartoonist “represented the best of the French spirit, with elegance, kindness, impertinence and intelligence.”