On January 7, 2015, freedom of expression was attacked through the editorial staff of “Charlie Hebdo”. Ten years later, she is still at the center of the satirical newspaper's battles. A fragile freedom which, to be preserved, requires a permanent struggle.
Ten years have passed since the Islamist attack of January 7, 2015 against Charlie Hebdo which left 12 dead, including 8 members of the editorial staff. The satirical newspaper was attacked for having caricatured the Prophet Muhammad. A few days later, a large republican march was organized throughout France to defend freedom of expression.
Since then, the fight has continued. In 2020, at the opening of the trial of the terrorists' accomplices, thethe caricatures which had made Charlie Hebdo a target has been reposted. A way for the newspaper to show that it is not giving up its freedom of expression.
The fight also involves justice: in the fall of 2024, one of the French people closest to Al-Qaeda was presented to the judge. Considered the mastermind of the attacks Charliehe was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was the childhood friend of one of the two terrorists, and was with him in Yemen a few months before January 2015.
Natacha, the daughter of the designer Georges Wolinski, murdered during the attack, attended the trial. For her, it was carried out with a masterful hand: “I said to myself that this is the greatness of our republican values. I told myself that if we have this justice, we are protected from everything. Obviously we are weak compared to the fundamentalists, and we will always be weak. Secularism will always be weaker than radicalism. Radicalism, there is something of violence and ultra-violence, so secularism practically cannot fight but yes, we can fight through the nobility of our institutions. And there, I saw it marching, this nobility.“
During the trial, the judges recalled that blasphemy does not exist in French law. The press is free to make fun of the powerful and the gods. For the lawyer of Charlie Hebdo Richard Malka, this is a principle from which we must not retreat one millimeter: “It is our weakness which gives our enemies their course of action. It is a balance of power with religious fact, it will always be a balance of power. It is like that… The best way to avoid not to have an attack is to show that they will obtain nothing, never! Not a single step back, not a single renunciation. That's their kerosene, in fact, those are our renunciations, that's it. their engine oil. “
-Within the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdothe fight resumed with the pencils the day after the attack. Coco immersed herself in work so as not to sink: “The first survival reflex was to make the newspaper, to ensure that the newspaper lived so that these Islamist terrorists did not win that too.“
And Riss took over the satirical weekly: “For me, it was not tolerable that our newspaper disappeared at the hands of terrorists. Despite the tragic circumstances, we had to continue. It was an act of struggle. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a war, but it's a real battle of ideas and if we give in, we've lost.”
Excerpt from “Charlie, still living“, broadcast in “1:15 p.m. on Sunday(New window)(New window)“January 5 2025.
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