French cartoonist Jacques Faizant dies at age 87

French editorial cartoonist Jacques Faizant, whose work was a fixture in Le Figaro newspaper for more than four decades, died Saturday, an editor said. He was 87. Faizant, who contributed more than 30,000 cartoons to Le Figaro, had recently fallen ill and found it hard to draw, Yves Threard, deputy editor at Le Figaro, told France-Inter radio. Faizant retired from the paper in late 2005.

"A monumental figure at Le Figaro has left us," Threard said. Faizant's work caricatured French leaders from Gen. Charles de Gaulle to current President Jacques Chirac.

Many of his drawings depicted "Marianne," a woman in a red bonnet who is a symbol for France and its spirit of liberty, equality and brotherhood. One famous Faizant sketch, which appeared after de Gaulle's death in 1970, showed Marianne weeping over a fallen oak tree. Details of Faizant's funeral arrangements were not immediately available, reports the AP. N.U.