Biography

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.