Charlie Hebdo’s new edition ‘made with joy as well as pain’ | Media | The GuardianCharlie Hebdo’s new edition ‘made with joy as well as pain’ | Media | The Guardian










Close






Skip to main content

 









sign in








subscribe









search




jobs






more


from the guardian:


jobs


change edition:



switch to the UK edition


switch to the AU edition







US edition




switch to the UK edition




switch to the Australia edition













The Guardian


Winner of the Pulitzer prize











home


›
media










home




US




world




opinion




sports




soccer




tech




arts




lifestyle




fashion




business




money




travel




environment







browse all sections
close







 











Charlie Hebdo



Charlie Hebdo’s new edition ‘made with joy as well as pain’









Editor-in-chief and cartoonist describe process of putting together latest edition of satirical magazine
























Sorry, your browser is unable to play this video.
Please install Adobe Flash™ and try again.
Alternatively upgrade to a modern browser.





Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Renald Luzier, aka Luz, explains the magazine’s latest front cover 



Alexandra Topping in Paris


Tuesday 13 January 2015 12.03 EST







Share on Facebook







Share on Twitter







Share via Email







Share on LinkedIn







Share on Google+







Share on WhatsApp
















It was standing room only for the emotional Charlie Hebdo press conference on Tuesday afternoon, as the surviving members of the team vowed that the magazine would continue and its spirit would not be broken.
In the packed cafe area at the top of Libération’s offices, where the surviving members of Charlie Hebdo have been working since Friday, editor-in-chief Gérard Biard held up the new edition of the magazine, which features a picture of the prophet Muhammad crying below the words “All is forgiven”. Biard said the edition had been made “with joy as well as pain”.
“We are happy to have done it, happy to have managed to do it,” he said. “It was difficult because it had to be something of us, something of the events which we have been confronted with. This edition – the whole of Charlie Hebdo is in it. This edition is Charlie Hebdo.”
He thanked the institutions and individuals who had pledged their support and money to the magazine following the attack on its offices last Wednesday that left 12 people dead, including two police officers. “There will be a future, there is no doubt about that,” he said. “We don’t know what it will look like yet, but there will be a magazine, there will be no interruption.”
And, this being a Charlie Hebdo press conference, there had to be some humour, despite the tears held back by cartoonist Luz – who drew the front page – and columnist and doctor Patrick Pelloux, who sat next to Biard.
“Thank you for being here,” said the editor-in-chief, who was on holiday when the attack happened. “I’d like to say thank you for this moment, but that one is already taken,” he joked, referring to the recent memoir, Merci Pour Ce Moment, by the French president’s former partner Valérie Trierweiler.
Luz told the world’s assembled media, who were packed into every inch of space in the makeshift conference room, that he had no fear after drawing the picture of Muhammad on the front cover of the magazine. “I have no worries about the cover,” he said. “We have confidence in people’s intelligence and we have confidence in humour. The people who did this attack, they have no sense of humour.”
Luz added: “I’m sorry we’ve drawn him yet again but the Muhammad we’ve drawn is a man who is crying.” 
In a deeply personal testimony, the cartoonist, clearly struggling with emotion, explained that after the attacks the team had been forced to go back to work. “I was in a corner, I summoned all the talent of those who weren’t there and all those who were. We said: ‘We have to have a drawing that makes people laugh’.”
On his moment of inspiration, he added: “There was this idea to draw this character [...] I looked, he was crying; then I wrote “all is forgiven”, then I cried. It was the front cover. It wasn’t the one that the world wanted us to do, or the terrorists, but it was ours.”
Charlie Hebdo will come out on Wednesday, with a print run of 3m, instead of the usual 60,000 copies.
Biard called the front cover “astounding”. “When we saw it we all burst out laughing and threw ourselves into each other’s arms,” he said.
An editorial written by Biard says Charlie Hebdo, which it describes as an atheist publication, “has accomplished more miracles than all the saints and prophets put together”.
“What we are most proud of is what you have in your hands, the magazine that we have always produced, in the company of those who have always produced it,” the editorial reads. “What made us most laugh is that the bells of Notre-Dame rang in our honour.”
Biard adds that the magazine has felt “a little alone” in the last few years and he makes an impassioned plea for everyone who used the phrase “Je suis Charlie” over the past few days to defend secularity now. “We will hope that as of 7 January 2015, the strong defence of secularity will be obvious to everyone,” he writes, adding that “cultural relativism [...] opens the way to only one thing: religious totalitarianism.”
Digital versions of the magazine will be available in Spanish, Arabic, French and English, while the Turkish daily Cumhuriyet and the Italian Il Fatto Quotidiano will be the only publications to publish the print edition in their own pages. Biard said the team especially wanted to publish the Turkish publication, because laïcité – the separation of religion and state – was under threat there too.
He urged people to go to newspaper stands to buy the edition. “Go and buy it,” he said. “If we can make [Charlie Hebdo] live, we can make ideas live in France and throughout the world – then we really will have won.”



Charlie Hebdo staff working at the offices of Liberation following the deadly attack.
Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images


How the edition was produced
In the hours following the bloody attack, the idea that the magazine could come out a week later seemed impossible. Its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, known as Charb, was dead, as were nine key cartoonists, contributors and subeditors, as well as a visitor to the offices. But the reaction of the surviving members – and their compatriots – was immediate. Offers of help and funds flooded in from media organisations, individuals and companies around the world, while cartoonists offered drawings for free and donations to keep the team going.
By Friday, the remaining team had set up camp at Libération, where they had taken refuge in 2011 after Charlie Hebdo’s offices were firebombed following the publication of cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
“When they came up the stairs it was like a funeral procession,” said Lawrence Defranoux, online editor of international news at the newspaper.
“Our papers are close, we share some contributors, so they stopped to say hello to those they knew, but there were already so many demands for interviews that they quickly put up a screen and a note.”
The note was still there on Tuesday as journalists arrived for the press conference. It read: “No journalists”, with a small note below adding: “Thank you”. Having already lost two days’ work, and with a skeleton team, the core group of about 25 people entered Libé’s “porthole” conference room, where the paper holds its morning editorial meeting. With five police officers standing guard outside the room, and more on the street below where the iron shutters had been closed since Wednesday, a delivery of computers was accepted on loan from Le Monde, the heating was turned up and the windows were opened to let the team smoke.
With swollen eyes, those who would create the new edition went to work: among them Luz, Willem, Coco, Babouse, Sigolène Vinson, Antonio Fischetti, Zineb El Rhazoui, Laurent Léger.
At that first meeting, they discussed how the pages would be filled? “Right, shall we make the paper?” asked editor-in-chief Gérard Biard. The answer came quickly, in the true Charlie Hebdo style: “I don’t know what’s going on in the news,” said Patrick Pelloux, the doctor and columnist who arrived at the paper’s offices just moments after the massacre had taken place, and tried desperately to save the lives of his friends.
Biard put forward his opinion. “I would be in favour of making a ‘normal’ edition. So that readers recognise Charlie. So that it’s not even a special edition,” he said, according to Libération media journalist Isabelle Hanne, who was given special access to the team. “Not bad,” was the reply from the table.



Topics



Charlie Hebdo




Charlie Hebdo attack




Newspapers & magazines




France




Magazines



More…



Freedom of speech




Europe








Share on Facebook







Share on Twitter







Share via Email







Share on LinkedIn







Share on Google+







Share on WhatsApp



















 






more on this story














Iranian newspaper shut down for showing solidarity with Charlie Hebdo

Mardom-e-Emrooz also has licence suspended over front page depicting George Clooney and words ‘I am Charlie, too’



Published: 19 Jan 2015




Iranian newspaper shut down for showing solidarity with Charlie Hebdo












42% of French people say cartoons that upset Muslims shouldn’t be published

Survey, in wake of Charlie Hebdo attack, also finds 68% feel citizens should be forbidden from returning to France after fighting with Islamist groups abroad



Published: 18 Jan 2015




42% of French people say cartoons that upset Muslims shouldn’t be published












Turkish PM compares Binyamin Netanyahu to Paris attackers

Ahmet Davutoğlu accuses Israeli leader of crimes against humanity and criticises publication of prophet cartoons



Published: 15 Jan 2015




Turkish PM compares Binyamin Netanyahu to Paris attackers












Salman Rushdie on Charlie Hebdo: freedom of speech can only be absolute

Author who faced Iranian death edict over The Satanic Verses expresses anger at vilification of murdered magazine staff



Published: 15 Jan 2015




Salman Rushdie on Charlie Hebdo: freedom of speech can only be absolute














France clamours for Charlie Hebdo as news kiosks sell out




Published: 14 Jan 2015




France clamours for Charlie Hebdo as news kiosks sell out








Charlie Hebdo poster burned in protest as Muslim leaders condemn cover




Published: 14 Jan 2015




Charlie Hebdo poster burned in protest as Muslim leaders condemn cover








Charlie Hebdo: Turkish court orders ban on web pages featuring front cover




Published: 14 Jan 2015




Charlie Hebdo: Turkish court orders ban on web pages featuring front cover








Muslim leaders appeal for calm as Charlie Hebdo special hits the streets




Published: 14 Jan 2015




Muslim leaders appeal for calm as Charlie Hebdo special hits the streets
















popular












 








The Guardian






back to top














home




US




world




opinion




sports




soccer




tech




arts




lifestyle




fashion




business




money




travel




environment







all sections
close







home




US




world




UK




europe




americas




asia




middle east




africa




australia






opinion




sports




soccer




MLS




NFL




MLB




NBA




NHL






soccer




live scores




tables




competitions




results




fixtures




clubs






tech




games






arts




movies




tv & radio




music




books




art & design




stage




classical






lifestyle




food




health




love & sex




family




women




home & garden






fashion




business




markets




companies






money




travel




USA




europe




UK






environment




development




cities






science




media
selected




crosswords




video











Media




›
Charlie Hebdo








jobs

subscribe
all topics
all contributors

info and resources

contact us

feedback

complaints & corrections
terms & conditions
privacy policy
cookie policy
securedrop


© 2015 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.






















 
