Ten years later, Charlie Hebdo commemorates the first attack in a dark year for France

Ten years to the day after the killing of January 7, 2015, Charlie Hebdo is releasing a special 32-page issue this Tuesday. He publishes caricatures on God selected as part of an international competition launched at the end of 2024. “They did not kill Charlie Hebdo,” says one of its figures, the editor-in-chief Gérard Biard.

A carnage

After two days of tracking, the latter were shot dead by a GIGN intervention team, in a printing works in Dammartin-en-Goële (Seine-et-Marne), 45 km from Paris, where they had taken refuge.

The target of jihadist threats since 2006

A joyfully anarchist and anticlerical newspaper created in 1970 from the ashes of the Hara-Kiri magazine, Charlie Hebdo had been the target of jihadist threats since the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad in 2006. Among the dead were its emblematic director, the cartoonist Charb, as well as as two legends of caricature in France, Cabu and Wolinski.

Other Islamist attacks near Paris then cost the life of a police officer in Montrouge, south of Paris, the next day, then four people of Jewish faith in a kosher store, Porte de Vincennes, on January 9.

These attacks caused worldwide emotion and gave birth to a support slogan that remains famous: “Je suis Charlie”. On January 11, 2015, demonstrations brought together nearly four million people across France, with many heads of state and government in the Parisian procession.

“Sobriety”

Ten years after this global fervor, the commemorations organized this Tuesday will be “like every year” marked by “sobriety, in accordance with the wishes of families”, indicated the Paris town hall. “Anne Hidalgo will pay tribute to the victims of the January 2015 attacks in the presence of the President of the Republic and several ministers,” she added.

Broadcast live on France 2, these commemorations will begin at 11:30 a.m., rue Nicolas-Appert, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris, where Charlie Hebdo had its premises in 2015.

They will continue on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, where police officer Ahmed Merabet was shot dead by the Kouachis as they fled. They will end at 1:10 p.m. with a tribute to the victims of Hyper Cacher. And, this Wednesday, the city of Montrouge will organize a tribute ceremony to Clarissa Jean-Philippe, killed by Amedy Coulibaly, also author of the Hyper Cacher attack.

Paris attacks: let’s not forget their faces

“The dangers are still there”

On November 13, 2015, France was mourned by other attacks, on an even larger scale: they left 130 dead, at the Bataclan and on several terraces of bars and restaurants.

“The commemoration of the 2015 attacks reminds us that the dangers are still there and that we must not give in to the fight for the protection of the French and the defense of our freedoms,” declared Emmanuel Macron on Friday during the Council of Ministers. .

“An institution”

Charlie Hebdo, “which was built in marginality, now appears as an institution”, for its part, recently observed Riss (above), Charb’s successor. Far from the records of 2015 – the issue following the attack had a circulation of eight million copies and subscriptions peaked at 240,000 in February – the weekly now has 30,000 subscribers and has sold 20,000 copies. on newsstands.