Ten years after the attack perpetrated against Charlie HebdoPhilippe Val, former director of the satirical newspaper, assured the Parisianin an interview published this Sunday, that he did not “regret” having published caricatures of Mohammed in 2006. “It was a question of survival of press freedom,” he responded to the national daily after “a long silence”.
“Cabu said it himself at the time. I brought together all the staff of Charlie to ask them for their opinion and if only one had not wanted to, we would not have published. (…) But I do not regret, it had to be done, the fight is not over, things are not better today,” said the journalist, specifying that he had been living “under protection since that day- there for twenty years.
The weekly had been the target of jihadist threats since the publication of these drawings of the prophet. On January 7, 2015, brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi entered the newspaper’s editorial office and killed twelve people. They were shot dead two days later while taking refuge in a printing works in Dammartin-en-Goële, in Seine-et-Marne.
A commemoration with a competition on caricatures about God
After these events, numerous “Je suis Charlie” rallies took place on January 11, throughout France, bringing together millions of people. Philippe Val deplored to the Parisian that no 2017 presidential candidate echoes these demonstrations.
According to him, “we missed something” regarding freedom of expression and secularism, which led to a “detachment” of young people on these subjects. Philippe Val particularly blames social networks. For him, the problem is that they are “archipellating, that France is becoming tribalized, that clans and communities are being reconstituted”. However, he does not know “how we are going to do it”. “The world of social networks is a world of abstraction…”, he concludes.
Our file on Charlie Hebdo
On the occasion of the commemoration of the Islamist attack, a special issue bringing together “the best drawings” caricaturing God will be published on Tuesday. The newspaper launched an “international competition” in mid-November for “professional cartoonists and cartoonists of all ages”. It was necessary to “express your anger against the influence of all religions on your freedoms”.