January 2015 attacks: Charlie Hebdo, an editorial staff under high surveillance in a “bunker”

Still standing, still alive… In 2015, after the assassination of eight of its members, the Charlie editorial team refused to abdicate and took on the challenge, without ever renouncing its freedom of tone, to continue at all costs. . Ten years later, the satirical weekly still appears on newsstands every Wednesday.

A commitment that has a price. Housed for a time in Libération premises, since September 2015 the editorial team has moved to hyper-secure premises in Paris, the address of which is still kept secret. The location of the “bunker”, as the team itself calls it, is a taboo subject even today.

On the other hand, the members of the editorial staff make no secret of the constant police protection to which they have been subject for ten years, including the histories of Charlie like Luz. “It’s heavy sometimes, I can’t say otherwise. But we have integrated that into our way of life: we always have to plan and calculate everything… Sometimes, I get a little tired of it. But if I want to continue doing Charlie, I have to put up with it,” Riss, designer and publishing director, injured during the attack, recently told us.

Little by little, sales crumbled

Some preferred, quickly after the attacks, to leave the editorial staff: the cartoonist Luz, the cartoonist Catherine Meurisse, the columnist Patrick Pelloux… Other cartoonists arrived, like Juin, 36 years old, who joined the team only three months later on January 7. There is also Alice, 26 years old, in the editorial office since 2018 or even Biche, 29 years old, “totally fulfilled” in the editorial office of the satirical weekly. In total, there are around thirty people, including administrative staff, who support Charlie today.

Little by little, sales eroded. In 2017, 50,000 issues were still sold each week on newsstands in addition to 50,000 subscribers. Today, the figures have fallen to 18,000 and 30,000 respectively, which remains higher than the pre-2015 total (30,000 total including kiosks and subscribers). Which allows Charlie, by relying on his cash flow, to stay alive.