ten years later, the very symbolic front page of the satirical newspaper

CHARLIE HEBDO – « Unbreakable “. Ten years after the attack Charlie Hebdo which decimated part of its editorial staff, the satirical newspaper published a special issue on Tuesday January 7 in which it said “ indestructible » with on the front page a drawing of a reader sitting on an assault rifle and reading, visibly delighted, this same issue “ historical » of 32 pages.

“The desire to laugh will never disappear! »assures the newspaper, which offers in these pages some 40 caricatures chosen from hundreds to show that it is still committed to “ laugh at God », despite the jihadist attack.

“Satire has a virtue that has helped us get through these tragic years: optimism. If we want to laugh, it’s because we want to live. Laughter, irony, caricature are manifestations of optimism. Whatever happens, whether dramatic or happy, the desire to laugh will never disappear.underlines Riss, its director, in the editorial, read by AFP, and which looks back on the last 10 years marked, according to him, by a “geopolitical situation” who is “aggravated”.

Draw your anger against the influence of all religions”

The newspaper, whose anticlerical line has never varied, launched an international competition at the end of 2024 among press cartoonists on the theme #LaughdeGod, inviting them to “draw your anger against the influence of all religions on your freedoms”. Among 350 drawings received, nearly 40, “the most efficient and successful”are published in the anniversary issue.

Among them, one represents a Christ on the cross filming himself with a telephone with a subtitle warning that “the little bird is going to come out”another shows a mother and her child in a landscape of ruins saying to themselves that“one god it’s okay, three hello the damage”a designer wonders if drawing “A guy drawing a guy drawing Mohammed, is that okay? ».

Another sketch depicts a man wondering “how to caricature what does not exist? This competition is completely stupid”.

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 part of it”. 62% of respondents say they are in favor of “right to outrageously criticize a religious belief, symbol or dogma”.

Democracy “threatened by renewed obscurantist forces”

“Today, the values ​​of Charlie Hebdo, such as humor, satire, freedom of expression, ecology, secularism, feminism to name but a few, have never been so challenged. cause “. “Perhaps because it is democracy itself which finds itself threatened by renewed obscurantist forces”he explains.

On January 7, 2015, 12 people were killed in the attack on the weekly by the Kouachi brothers, French people who had pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda. Among them, eight members of the editorial staff: the designers Cabu, Charb, Honoré, Tignous and Wolinski, the psychoanalyst Elsa Cayat, the economist Bernard Maris and the proofreader Mustapha Ourrad.

Charlie had been the target of jihadist threats since the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006. Ten years after the attack, the commemorations organized on Tuesday will take place in the presence of the President of the Republic, several ministers and the mayor of Paris.

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