Leap year day: French newspaper publishes only on Feb. 29

PARIS –

Read all about it, right now — or you’ll have to wait another four years. Satirical French newspaper La Bougie du Sapeur only comes out on Feb. 29.

It’s a leap year-only publication, filled with cringe-worthy puns and commentary on events of the past four years.

The 2024 edition includes an article suggesting France doesn’t need schools anymore thanks to artificial intelligence. Another floats the idea of dismantling the Eiffel Tower during the Paris Olympics to reduce security risks — and having IKEA produce a manual for rebuilding it.

Some friends started the newspaper as a joke in 1980, naming it after a comic book figure who was born on Feb. 29. The last edition — in 2020, as the world went into COVID-19 lockdowns — sold 120,000 copies. Revenue from newsstand sales goes mainly to a charity for people with disabilities.

Its editors are proudly politically incorrect, and some articles seem rather, well, dated. But that’s the point. That, and lifting the mood a bit.

When the world goes out of whack, reads its once-in-four-years editorial, “Sometimes you have to laugh about it.”