The nom de plume of one the of most politically engaged pochoirists means "the street performer." His stencils continue a Parisian tradition of biting public political satire that extends back to the street theater that helped foment the French Revolution. More immediately, Le Bateleur's pochoirs are rooted in the Situationists' recognition of the provocative power of the image and the phrase as weapons of subversion.

Le Bateleur's stencils attack social injustice, expose the hypocrisies of government and the brutishness of police behavior. "Why," he asks with seeming naivete, "do the police systematically arrest Arabs, blacks, and the homeless?" While the authorities seek to ban images from walls with "Defense de Afficher" (the French equivalent of "Post No Bills"), Le Bateleur, with his wry wall message "Defense de Ficher" (fiches are police files), called for the expunging of names and records of those guilty only of poverty. To avoid the police himself, he made his pochoirs in the midst of lunch time crowds.

Le Bateleur the critic was nevertheless an optimist. He had faith in the transformative energies of individuals, which is testified to by his frequent images not only of freedom fighters but jazz musicians, rock singers, and holy people.

He refused to show his own work in galleries but, to create a street museum of popular art, he had collected over 1000 words by squatters and the homeless.

Le Bateleur, who himself lived as a squatter, died in 1996 at the age of 30.