Ten years to the day after this killing of January 7, 2015, “Charlie Hebdo” is simultaneously releasing a special 32-page issue. On the front page, he says he is “indestructible!” ”, with the drawing of a jovial reader sitting on an assault rifle, reading this “historic” newspaper.
Alongside him on newsstands, several daily newspapers devoted their front pages to the tenth anniversary of the attack: “Liberty, Liberty Charlie! » thus headlines “Libération”, while “Le Figaro” is worried to see France “still under the Islamist threat” ten years later.
“The terrorist threat has never been so present,” says Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau on the front page of “Parisien”, while the shadow of a pencil and an eraser pierced by a bullet draws a “10” on the front page of “La Croix”.
Threats since 2006
Twelve people, including eight members of the editorial staff, lost their lives in the attack on the weekly by the brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, Frenchmen of Algerian origin who had pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda. After two days of tracking, the latter were shot dead by an intervention team from the GIGN, the elite group of the French gendarmerie, in a printing works in Dammartin-en-Goële (Seine-et-Marne), where they were cut off.
A joyfully anarchist and anticlerical newspaper created in 1970 from the ashes of the Hara-Kiri magazine, “Charlie Hebdo” had been the target of jihadist threats since the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006. Among the dead were its emblematic director, the cartoonist Charb, as well as two caricature legends in France, Cabu and Wolinski.
From January 7 to 9, 2015, the Kouachi brothers and Amedy Coulibaly targeted freedom of expression, law enforcement and the Jewish community, during “coordinated” attacks although claimed by two distinct entities, Al-Qaeda. in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqpa) and the Islamic State (IS) organization.
Two ceremonies for Charlie and the Hyper Cacher
Two police officers in Paris and Montrouge, as well as four people of Jewish faith in a kosher store at Porte de Vincennes, were also killed during these three days of terror. To these victims was added the former webmaster of “Charlie Hebdo”, Simon Fieschi, seriously injured in the attack and died last October, at the age of 40.
The ceremonies will begin Tuesday at 11:30 a.m. rue Nicolas-Appert in the 11th arrondissement, where “Charlie Hebdo” had its premises in 2015. They will continue on Boulevard Richard Lenoir, where police officer Ahmed Merabet was shot dead by the Kouachis as they fled. They will end at 1:10 p.m. with a tribute to the victims of the Hyper Cacher store.
On Wednesday, the city of Montrouge will organize a tribute ceremony to municipal police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe, killed by Amedy Coulibaly, also author of the Hyper Cacher attack.
“The desire to laugh will never disappear”
These attacks caused worldwide emotion and gave birth to a slogan of support that remains famous: “Je suis Charlie”. On January 11, 2015, demonstrations brought together nearly 4 million people across France, with many heads of state and government in the Parisian procession.
Massive demonstrations took place throughout France after the attacks of January 2015.
KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP
Ten years later, “Charlie Hebdo” published in its special issue a series of caricatures on the theme #Laughing at God. The weekly, whose anticlerical line has never varied, launched an international competition at the end of 2024 inviting people to draw “anger against the influence of all religions”. Among 350 drawings received, nearly 40 were selected. One shows a mother and her child in a landscape of ruins saying to themselves that “one god is fine, three hello the damage”, another presents a cartoonist who wonders whether to draw “a guy who draws a guy who draws Mohammed , How's it going ? “.
The newspaper also publishes the results of an Ifop study for the Jean-Jaurès Foundation carried out in June 2024 indicating that 76% of French people believe that “freedom of expression is a fundamental right” and that “freedom of caricature is one of them “.
Riss, Charb's successor at the head of Charlie Hebdo, emphasizes in the editorial that “satire has a virtue that has helped us get through these tragic years: optimism.” “Whatever dramatic or happy happens, the desire to laugh will never disappear,” he says, looking back on the last few years marked, according to him, by a “geopolitical situation” which “ aggravated.”
