On January 7, 2015, the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo was savagely attacked for having exercised a freedom enshrined in article 11 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 according to which, “the free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of Man: every Citizen can therefore speak, write, print freely, except to answer for the abuse of this freedom in cases determined by law. 12 people fell under the bullets of the Kouachi brothers, including the cartoonists Charb, Wolinski, Cabu, Tignous.
In the fall of 2020, at the time of the trial of the accomplices of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the constitutionalist, Jean-Philippe Derosier, recalled that freedom of expression is “the most fundamental because it conditions the exercise of other democratic rights. It is from free expression that we arrive at the making of the law by the sovereign people and therefore at democracy.” This is also why parliamentarians are irresponsible for the comments made in the chamber. Disciplinary sanctions are nevertheless provided for in the regulations of the assemblies. There are four of them (article 92 of the Senate regulations): call to order, call to order with entry in the minutes, censure, censure with temporary exclusion
Freedom of expression is an inalienable right for every French citizen, because the Declaration of Human Rights is included in the block of constitutionality. That is to say that it is located at the top of the hierarchy of standards, in the same way as the Constitution of October 4, 1958 or the Environmental Charter of 2004. It is also important to remember that freedom of expression is not an absolute freedom. Like any freedom, its abuses can be punished to the extent that they harm others (article 4 of the declaration of Human and Citizen’s Rights).
“Freedom of expression is an optimistic principle inherited from the Enlightenment according to which men and women are not defined solely by their beliefs. This is why freedom of expression allows attacks on beliefs and convictions but prohibits attacking people. Article 11 of the Declaration of Human Rights also sets a limit to this freedom to speak, write, print freely, except to answer for the abuse of this freedom in the cases determined by the Law », Specifies Alexis Lévrier, media historian, lecturer at the University of Reims.
“Charlie Hebdo is part of this tradition of fighting in favor of secularism”
These limits to freedom of expression are set in the law of July 29, 1881 on freedom of the press. This law penalizes written or oral remarks such as insult or defamation made in a public setting. “It is a base of the Third Republic which was maintained until the Fifth. A period in which the revolutionary press was very violent. Between 1881 and 1905 the law of separation of Church and State, two French press cartoon traditions will emerge. First, within a very violent anticlerical press, such as La Calotte, Les Corbeaux or l’Assiette au Beurre, which did not hesitate to represent drawings of dismembered priests. It is the function which is attacked here, it therefore does not fall within the scope of the law. Charlie Hebdo is part of this tradition of fighting in favor of secularism and wanted to apply criticism of the Catholic religion to Islam”, underlines Alexis Lévrier before adding: “At the end of the 19th century, with the Dreyfus affair, you also have the emergence of anti-Semitic press cartoons. Here, we are not interested in religion as such, but we essentialize, we biologize the Jews,” develops Alexis Lévrier.
It was to repress the anti-Semitic press supporting the enemy from across the Rhine that in 1939, the Minister of Justice of the Daladier government, Paul Marchandeau, published a decree-law, aiming to supplement the law of 1881 in order to include the prohibition of attacks of a racial or religious nature against a group of people and no longer just against an individual.
Subsequently, other texts will clarify this distinction made by the law on freedom of the press. The Pleben law of 1972 punishes incitement to hatred based on origin or membership or non-membership of a specific ethnic group, nation, race or religion. In 1990, the Gayssot law introduced a new article 24 bis to the law of 1881 which punishes with one year’s imprisonment and €45,000, the offense of negationism, contesting the existence of one or more crimes against humanity.
2007 Charlie Trial
Before the Charlie attack, the weekly had been the subject, in 2007, of a procedure initiated by “the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF), and the Grand Mosque of Paris, for “ public insult against a group of people on the basis of their religion.” The complaint followed the publication in Charlie Hebdo of caricatures of Mohammed, initially published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. These included a drawing by Cabu published on the front page representing a dismayed Mohammed and under which one could read “It’s hard to be loved by idiots”. “On this front page, there was also a text specifying: Mohammed overwhelmed by fundamentalists. “This is why the judges considered that all Muslims were not targeted,” recalls Alexis Levrier.
“Despite the shocking, even hurtful, nature of this caricature for the sensitivity of Muslims, the context and circumstances of its publication in the Charlie Hebdo newspaper appear to exclude any deliberate desire to directly and gratuitously offend all Muslims. ; that the admissible limits of freedom of expression have therefore not been exceeded” had ruled the press and freedoms chamber of the Paris criminal court.
