Paris attacks: Sydney woman's partner in coma after Charlie Hebdo shootingParis attacks: Sydney woman's partner in coma after Charlie Hebdo shooting
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Paris attacks: Sydney woman's partner in coma after Charlie Hebdo shooting



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                January 8, 2015




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Michael Koziol
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'He loved working at Charlie Hebdo'
Sydney tourist Maisie Dubosarsky received an email from her boyfriend Simon Fieschi only minutes before he was shot by gunmen who stormed into the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo.
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Maisie Dubosarsky had emailed her boyfriend Simon Fieschi just 10 minutes before he was shot in the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo, where he worked. The discussion was bland, routine - it was, he said, a totally normal day.From Sydney, where she was home visiting family and friends, Ms Dubosarsky could only fear the worst when she heard about the attack. There were about 20 people in the newspaper's office at any given time - with 12 people killed, the odds were not good.

                                Maisie Dubosarsky with her boyfriend Simon Fieschi, who was shot in the Paris attacks. Photo: Supplied


An email from Mr Fieschi's mother soon offered some hope - he had been shot once, in the shoulder, but was alive and undergoing surgery.
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By morning, the picture was clearer: the bullet appeared to have ricocheted off his spinal vertebrae, perforating a lung. He was in an induced coma, with the full consequences of his injuries as yet unknown."When they wake him up, we'll start to know," she said. "Last night I was so happy because he wasn't dead. Now, realising that he might not walk again … it's kind of terrible. I just wish it wasn't real."

                                Simon Fieschi, who works at the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, with Maisie Dubosarsky.  Photo: Supplied


The 27-year-old flew back to Paris on Thursday as the world reeled from what seemed to be the most deadly terrorist attack on French soil in more than 50 years.Charlie Hebdo, a weekly satirical newspaper, has long attracted the ire of Islamic extremists for its no-holds-barred caricatures of religious figures, including the prophet Muhammad.Ms Dubosarsky met Mr Fieschi, 31, through a mutual friend during a working holiday in France 18 months ago. He had started work at Charlie Hebdo shortly after its offices were destroyed by a petrol bomb in November 2011, in retaliation for an issue satirising Islam. He handled the newspaper's social media accounts and reception, often fielding angry calls from people who had been pilloried or said they were offended by the newspaper's content.

                                Simon Fieschi and Maisie Dubosarsky met in Paris 18 months ago.  Photo: Supplied


"He liked to say that his job was to troll people," Ms Dubosarsky said. "They're very cool people [at Charlie Hebdo] and they tell people to get lost."They got threats all the time but … none of them thought that their lives were under threat. They were out in public all the time."Still, the newspaper's offices were under general police protection at all times, and its editor-in-chief, Stéphane Charbonnier, who died in the attack, had police bodyguards - one of whom was also killed.Charb, as he was known, was a "hero" who came across as "almost shy", Ms Dubosarsky said. She had met several of Mr Fieschi's colleagues and found the magazine's staff to be unassuming and "kind of quiet", but passionate about free speech and the role of satire in political debate."They believed in that more than anything," she said. "They knew they were at the forefront of that. They were attacking everyone – in a sense they were so libertarian they almost had no politics. They went for everybody."Despite a relatively small circulation of about 45,000 copies weekly, the left-wing publication is seen as culturally important and well-regarded for its willingness to lampoon various targets without compunction. That includes a 2006 decision to republish 12 cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad that were first published in Denmark, causing outrage in parts of the Islamic world.Charb had previously told French newspaper Le Monde that he would rather "die standing than live on my knees". But he would never have imagined an atrocity of this scale, Ms Dubosarsky said, nor that his staff could be so endangered.The terrorist attack has been condemned by leaders worldwide, including Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who described it as a "barbaric" atrocity."Freedom of expression is the cornerstone of a free society," he said.

















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