France will on Tuesday mark the tenth anniversary of the attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo on January 7, 2015, which claimed the lives of 12 people, including the editor at the time, Stéphane Charbonnier, and wounded 11. That morning, Said and Cherif Kouachi burst into the office armed with guns and murdered those present, shouting as they left, "We killed Charlie Hebdo. "
However, they did not kill the satirical periodical, which has been around for 55 years. As the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Gerard Bier, who survived the attack because he was in London that day, said this week, "They didn't succeed, we want it to live for another thousand years."
On Sunday, as part of the tenth anniversary events, which led to the murder of a policewoman on the outskirts of Paris and the attack on the Kosher supermarket in the 20th arrondissement of Paris, the newspaper kicked off a competition for the most daring cartoons against God.
The #Laughing at God competition received 350 cartoons from all over the world, of which 39 of the most successful illustrations were published. The cartoons, it should be noted, mock all religions. Among other things, the special issue includes an article dedicated to threats to secularism in Israel.
And yet, times have changed since four million took to the streets after the massacre to shout "JeSuisCharlie." The Charlie Hebdo editorial office is now located in an undisclosed location, and its main writers still live under 24-hour guard. Just last weekend, the memorial plaque for the policeman murdered in the Charlie Hebdo attack was vandalized, with the graffiti "Je suis Gaza" sprayed on it.
The current editor, Laurent Sourisseau, known as Riss, accused the left of turning a blind eye to Islamic violence in a book published last month in memory of the victims of the attack: "Politicians, journalists and intellectuals from the left continue to turn a blind eye to the threat of radical Islam in order to gain the support of Muslim communities, and in this way also fuel anti-Semitism."
Bernard Cazeneuve, the interior minister at the time of the attack, told the weekly Le Nouvel Obs magazine this week that "part of the radical left cynically thinks that Muslims are 'potential clients' for election campaigns."
The special issue published this week features a survey showing that 76% of French people support freedom of expression through cartoons. Culture Minister Rachida Dati also announced this week the opening of the Museum of Journalistic Illustration in 2027, a project that has been in the works for many years.
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Dozens of attempted attacks were foiled in France in 2024, three of which were during the Olympic Games, and the global wave of antisemitism and the recent terrorist attacks in the U.S. do not bode well. "Our consolation all these years has been the support we have received. 'Lucky you're there,' they tell us," Riss wrote in the editorial for the special issue: "And we answer: 'Lucky you're there.' In these ten years, Charlie Hebdo has become more than a newspaper. Our struggle is for us to be free."