“I am Charlie, cop, Jew, I am the Republic”?

LE FIGARO. – Ten years ago today, the 7th January 2015, France was mourned by the killing of Charlie Hebdo , then, on the 8th January, by the shooting of a policewoman, and finally, the 9, by the Hyper Cacher attack. The slogan « I am Charlie » then arises spontaneously. Were you Charlie at the time ? What did this slogan mean to you? ?

ALAIN FINKIELKRAUT. – Like a large majority of French people, I was touched to the heart by the assassination of journalists and cartoonists. Charlie Hebdo. So I was “Charlie” without the slightest reluctance. But not only that. « I am Charlie, cop, Jewish, I am the Republic », I said with the countless demonstrators: we were standing up against the murderous violence of radical Islam.

This unanimity was as beautiful as it was fragile. Four months after the attack, Emmanuel Todd’s book appeared Who is Charlie ?. It read this: « Repetitively blaspheming Muhammad, the central figure of a weak and discriminated group, should be, whatever the courts say, qualified as incitement to religious, ethnic or racial hatred. » Or even this: « Millions of French people rushed into the streets to define as a priority need of their society their right to spit on the religion of the weak. » This book was chosen to be on the cover of New Observer. Disconcerted for a moment, ideological anti-racism very quickly regained momentum.