Ten years after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, which remains "true to himself"

The attack on the editorial office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo who turns ten on Tuesday, has caused 12 deaths but above all a huge uproar in France and much of the world, which he showed solidarity with the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie). But the magazine says it remains true to itself.

The attack came after a long controversy in France over democratic secularism and the contrast between respect for religions and the right to freedom of expression and criticism, however strong it may be.

The issue has continued to heat up in this country, which has the largest Muslim community in Europe, with the murder in 2020 of high school teacher Samuel Paty for having shown some caricatures of Muhammad in a moral and civic education lesson on freedom of expression.

Charlie Hebdo, founded in 1970 with an anti-clerical and anarchist ideology, was targeted by Islamists after reproducing in 2006 the controversial cartoons of Muhammad which had been published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Post the previous year, as well as having added some of its own.

After years of controversy in public space, January 7, 2015 the brothers Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, Islamists of Algerian origin who had sworn allegiance to Al Qaeda entered the editorial office armed with assault rifles to take revenge on the publication.

The attack, very quickly, caused eleven deaths in the building: eight Charlie Hebdo workers, including five cartoonists (one was Stéphane Charbonnier ‘Charb’, who was also the director), as well as a guest, a police officer responsible for protecting the magazine and a building custodian.

The Kouachi brothers later killed a wounded policeman in cold blood during their escape. Their escape led to hostages being taken in an industrial printing plant outside Paris, where they died two days later in an intervention by a special police unit.

The shock of the attack and the murders committed immediately afterwards by Amedy Coulibaly, a friend of the Kouachis, was immense, and the slogan “Je suis Charlie” (I am Charlie) went around the world in solidarity with the magazine and the victims.

More than a million people took part in a demonstration in Paris on January 11which was attended by the president François Hollande and numerous foreign heads of state and government. In total, around four million people took part in the demonstrations in France.

Charlie Hebdo, true to itself

Charlie Hebdo remains faithful to its principles, albeit from an editorial office located in a secret location, with very acidic cartoons and articles against power and religions (Catholic, Jewish or Muslim).

And that loyalty will continue on this anniversary, as on Tuesday it will publish a special 32-page double issue with new caricatures on religions following an international competition, of which will be published 300,000 copies.

The issue, which will also include the results of a survey on support in France for caricature, blasphemy and freedom of expression, is a new example of Charlie Hebdo’s “decision to continue doing its work” despite everything, he said editor-in-chief Gérard Biard when it announced its publication.

The magazine had already published a tribute book to his eight murdered colleagues in December, entitled ‘Charlie Liberté. The diary of their life’ (Charlie Libertad. The diary of his life), in which his professional work from the beginning is reviewed and honored.

Meanwhile, key workers have been living under permanent police protection for ten years. As one of them, the cartoonist Riss, summarizes, “the pleasure of drawing is stronger than fear”.

Tragic year for jihadist terrorism

The Charlie Hebdo attack was the beginning of a tragic year and a half in France due to the attacks of jihadist terrorism. “Islamist terrorism has declared war on us,” Hollande recalls in an interview published on Sunday by the Ouest France newspaper.

Just a day later, Coulibaly, another Islamist friend of the Kouachis, has a trainee municipal police officer killed in Montrougea dormitory town near Paris, and the next day attacked a Jewish supermarket in the capital, killing four people and seriously wounding four, before being killed in a police assault.

In the following months there were several bombings and attacks in the country, with two deaths, which paled in comparison to those of November 13th.

That day, three nine-man commandos from Belgium they attacked the Stade de France during a France-Germany football match, the terraces of several cafés in Paris and the Bataclan concert hallwith a total of 130 dead and more than 400 injured.