Je suis toujours Charlie
Ten years on from the massacre at the French satirical magazine, we need to fight for free speech more than ever. PLUS: forthcoming events
Ten years ago today, two masked gunmen linked to al-Qaeda, armed with assault rifles, stormed the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Twelve people were murdered and another 11 injured. The magazine’s ‘crime’ was to ridicule religion, including (but by no means exclusively) Islam. This included republishing in 2005 a series of cartoons first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten that mocked the Prophet Mohammed.
There had already been a firebombing at the magazine’s offices in 2011 in retaliation for this mockery, and the murderous assault in January 2015 sparked a series of Islamist attacks across the year, culminating in a three-pronged attack on 13 November 2015, with the worst incident at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris, where 90 people were killed.
The reaction to the Charlie Hebdo murders was as revealing as the attack itself. Four million people in France on 11 January, including 1.6million in Paris, and world leaders were obliged to join in. ’Je Suis Charlie!’ became a hugely popular slogan. The following issue of Charlie Hebdo sold seven million copies when its circulation was normally 40,000.
Yet, as Brendan O’Neill described very well on the fifth anniversary:
Rumblings emerged within the cultural elite about whether Charlie Hebdo really should be defended. Didn’t the magazine bring the massacre upon itself by insulting Muslims, some liberals wondered? In April 2015, numerous prominent writers – including Peter Carey, Michael Ondaatje and Joyce Carol Oates – scandalously protested against PEN America after it said it would give its freedom-of-expression prize to Charlie Hebdo. They said it was wrong to reward a magazine that had caused ‘humiliation and suffering’ to French Muslims.
From claims that Charlie Hebdo was racist to the suggestion that the magazine had been ‘punching down’, the very people who should have been unequivocally defending the right to free expression, including the right to ridicule religion, were found wanting. It was an awful moment that revealed the limits of modern liberal sensibilities.
So it was great to see Our Fight UK, which has been a leading voice in supporting Israel’s right to defend itself against Islamist violence, marking the anniversary in Trafalgar Square today. The massacre and its consequences have not been forgotten. Below is a speech by Living Freedom’s project assistant, Felice Basbøll, from today’s event.
As a now 23-year-old, the attack on Charlie Hebdo was one of my first political memories. I’m from Denmark, and what I remember was a strong sense of international solidarity – they stuck their necks out for the same principles as the journalists from Jyllands-Posten who printed their cartoons back in 2005 – and after the attack, the Danes stood in solidarity with them.
Francois Zimeray, the French ambassador to Denmark at the time of the Charlie Hebdo massacre and present at the terrorist attack on Krudttønden a month later in Copenhagen, was interviewed by the online Danish paper Frihedsbrevet ahead of today’s anniversary.
In light of Denmark’s Quran law that has now been on the books for over a year, he was asked, provocatively, whether the staff at Charlie Hebdo died in vain. He responded (roughly translated from Danish):
That’s a horrible question. I have never thought about it that way, but it is a good question. I have to remind people why Charlie Hebdo initially became a terror target. It happened because Charlie Hebdo reprinted the Danish Muhammed cartoons in solidarity with the Danish journalists and newspapers that had been threatened.
He continued:
If Charb and the other employees at Charlie Hebdo are sitting somewhere in the sky right now looking down on the Danish Quran law, they might wonder whether they, in their solidarity with Denmark, risked their lives in vain.
I was 13 when the Charlie Hebdo massacre happened, and a lot has changed since then. You can look across the Western world and see similar cowardice, as if we’ve collectively forgotten why those values are worth fighting for. I don’t think I realised at the time how daring it was for the Danish government at the time to respond with unwavering support – it felt like a matter of course. But it doesn’t anymore – in the past few years we have seen what cowardice and complacency looks like.
But for many of the young people that congregate around Living Freedom, the attack on Charlie Hebdo was a formative moment. For us, the courage of the Charlie Hebdo staff is an inspiration, and reminds us of what is being lost – a solidarity across the West that must be revived. And they tirelessly continue to do so, leading the way for young people to take up the battle for liberties, and that commitment to solidarity with them and with each other.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
In the spirit of encouraging free and open debate, here are some events coming up that might be of interest:
Sunday 12 January, 6pm, via Zoom
Classical Philosophy Reading Group:
Plato’s Apology and Crito
This is the second in series of discussions looking at Plato's Socratic dialogues.
Free to attend, register hereThursday 16 January, 7pm, central London
Living Freedom Forum (for 18-30 year olds)
Tyranny: A twenty-first century threat to freedom?
Speakers: Edmund Stewart and Alastair Donald
Free to attend, register hereThursday 23 January, 7pm, via Zoom
Bookshop Barnie: David Spiegelhalter on The Art of Uncertainty
Free to attend, register hereThursday 23 January, 7pm, online
Independent virtual events: Will the Brexit headache ever end?
Speakers include Claire Fox, Anand Menon and Mark Francois
Free to attend, register hereThursday 30 January, 7pm, Brunswick Inn, Derby
East Midlands Salon: Defending Christ and the Prophet: free speech versus blasphemy
Speaker: Don Milligan
Tickets £3.96 available via EventbriteFriday 4 - Sunday 6 July, Wyboston Lakes Conference Centre
The Academy 2025 – organised by Ideas Matter
Upheaval: Why politics needs a new language
Tickets and information hereSaturday 18 & Sunday 19 October, Church House, Westminster
Battle of Ideas festival 2025
Buy tickets via Eventbrite