Charlie Hebdo shooting

• 1. Introduction

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  The Charlie Hebdo shooting began on Wednesday the 7th of January 2015, in the 11th arrondissement of Paris. On the second floor of 10 Rue Nicolas-Appert, the staff of a French satirical weekly had settled into their first news conference of the year. Reporter Laurent Léger later described the noise that reached them from below. They took it for a firecracker. In his words, "We still thought it was a joke. The atmosphere was still joyous."

  It was not a joke. The questions that follow are simple to ask and hard to answer. Why had this particular magazine become a target? Who were the two men who walked into that building, and what road had led them there? And how did millions of people, along with a handful of prominent dissenters, respond to what happened next?

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• 2. Satire and Secularism

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  Charlie Hebdo, which is French for Charlie Weekly, was published from 1969 to 1981 and then again from 1992 onward. Its pages carried cartoons, reports, polemics and jokes. The tone was irreverent and non-conformist, and the politics were secularist, antireligious and left-wing. Catholicism, Judaism and Islam were all fair game as the news unfolded.

  Controversy followed the paper for years. In 2006, Islamic organisations sued under French hate speech laws over its re-publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons of Muhammad, and they lost. In November 2011, an issue retitled Charia Hebdo, meaning Sharia Weekly, put a cartoon of Muhammad on its cover. Depicting him is forbidden in most interpretations of Islam. The office was firebombed and the website was hacked, and the magazine afterwards moved into an unmarked office.

  In 2012 the paper ran a fresh series of Muhammad cartoons, some of them nude caricatures. They appeared only days after violent attacks on US embassies in the Middle East, which were purportedly a reaction to the anti-Islamic film Innocence of Muslims. France responded by closing embassies, consulates, cultural centres and international schools in about 20 Muslim countries. Riot police surrounded the newspaper's offices.

  The legal ground beneath all this dates to 1905. That year a law separating the Churches and the State enshrined laïcité, the French principle of secularism, and in 1945 it became part of the constitution. Blasphemy law had already disappeared as the Republic pulled away from the Catholic Church between 1789 and 1830. Under laïcité, government and public services must be religion-blind, while private citizens remain free to practise and express their faith. The right to satirise people and religions is balanced by defamation laws, and it was designed to protect speech from local powers such as the then-powerful Catholic Church.

  The Quran itself does not explicitly ban images of Muhammad. Still, prominent Islamic views have long opposed human images, especially of prophets, and such views have gained ground among militant groups. Some Muslims therefore regard satire of Islam as blasphemy punishable by death. The most famous expression of that sentiment was the murder of the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh.

  The Jyllands-Posten cartoons had already set off a string of plots. Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard lived under police protection for the rest of his life. On the 1st of January 2010, police used guns to stop an assassin in his home, and the man received nine years in prison. In 2013 a court in the United States convicted David Headley and Tahawwur Hussain Rana of planning terrorism against Jyllands-Posten.

  Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier had directed publication at Charlie Hebdo since 2009. Two years before the attack he declared, "We have to carry on until Islam has been rendered as banal as Catholicism." In 2013, al-Qaeda added him to its most wanted list alongside Westergaard and two other Jyllands-Posten figures, Carsten Juste and Flemming Rose. Charb was a sport shooter, and he applied for a permit to carry a firearm for self-defence. His application went unanswered.

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• 3. Rue Nicolas-Appert

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  Around 11:00 a.m., two hooded, armed men burst into 6 Rue Nicolas-Appert, shouting "Is this Charlie Hebdo?" It was the wrong address. They threatened the people inside and fired a bullet through a glass door before leaving for number 10.

  Outside number 10 they met cartoonist Corinne "Coco" Rey, who was with her young daughter. At gunpoint, the men made her tap the passcode into the electronic door. Once inside, they sprayed the lobby with gunfire. Maintenance worker Frédéric Boisseau, seated at the reception desk, was the first person killed.

  The gunmen then forced Rey to take them to the second floor, where 15 staff members sat in the editorial meeting. The shooting in that room lasted between five and ten minutes. The attackers aimed at the journalists' heads. Rey survived uninjured by hiding under a desk, and from there she watched Wolinski and Cabu being murdered. Léger also hid under a desk when the gunmen entered. Ten of the twelve victims died on the second floor, beyond the security door.

  The killers left the building and ran into police near the corner of Boulevard Richard-Lenoir and Rue Moufle, about 180 metres east of the main scene. An authenticated video shows what followed. Officer Ahmed Merabet lay wounded on the pavement after an exchange of fire. One gunman ran toward him and shouted, "Did you want to kill us?" Merabet raised a hand and answered, "No, it's fine, boss." The gunman shot him in the head at close range.

  Sam Kiley of Sky News studied that footage and called the pair "military professionals" who likely had "combat experience". He pointed to infantry tactics such as moving in "mutual support" and to carefully aimed single shots in tight groupings. As they walked away, the men shouted, "We have avenged the Prophet Muhammad. We have killed Charlie Hebdo!"

  They escaped in a getaway car, then hijacked a second vehicle at Porte de Pantin and forced its driver out. On the way they ran over a pedestrian and fired at responding police officers. The first car, a black Citroën C3, was later found abandoned with jihadist flags and Molotov cocktails inside.

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• 4. The Dead and the Spared

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  Georges Wolinski, aged 80, was the oldest of the twelve people killed. The others from the magazine's circle were Cabu (Jean Cabut), 76, and Philippe Honoré, 73, both cartoonists. Bernard Maris, 68, was an economist, editor and columnist. Mustapha Ourrad, 60, was a copy editor, and Tignous (Bernard Verlhac), 57, was a cartoonist. Charb was 47. Elsa Cayat, 54, a psychoanalyst and columnist of Tunisian Jewish descent, was the only woman killed.

  Four more victims were not staff. Frédéric Boisseau, 42, worked for the company Sodexo and had come to the building on a call. Franck Brinsolaro, 49, was the police bodyguard assigned to protect Charb. Ahmed Merabet, also 42, was the police officer shot outside. The fourth was a 69-year-old travel writer and festival organiser who was visiting Cabu.

  Eleven people were wounded. Philippe Lançon was shot in the face and left in critical condition, though he recovered. Fabrice Nicolino, 59, was shot in the leg. Riss (Laurent Sourisseau), 48, the cartoonist and editorial director, was hit in the shoulder.

  Some in the room were spared on purpose. Crime reporter Sigolène Vinson survived after one shooter aimed at her and then lowered his weapon. He told her, "I'm not killing you because you are a woman," and ordered her to convert to Islam, read the Quran and wear a veil. Book designer Gérard Gaillard, a guest, and staff members Éric Portheault and Léger were also unharmed.

  Chance kept many others away. Medical columnist Patrick Pelloux, cartoonists Luz and Catherine Meurisse, and film critic Jean-Baptiste Thoret were all late for work. Cartoonist Willem never attends the meeting. Editor-in-chief Gérard Biard and journalist Zineb El Rhazoui were on holiday. Luz, arriving late, got there in time to see the gunmen driving away.

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• 5. The Kouachi Brothers

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  Saïd Kouachi was born on the 7th of September 1980, and his brother Chérif on the 29th of November 1982. Both were born in Paris to Algerian immigrants. After their mother's apparent suicide they were orphaned young and placed in a foster home in Rennes. In 1994, two years on, they were moved to an orphanage in Corrèze along with a younger brother and an older sister. Around 2000 the brothers moved to Paris.

  In Paris, Chérif fell in with an informal gang that met in the Parc des Buttes Chaumont for military-style training exercises. The group sent would-be jihadists to fight for al-Qaeda in Iraq after the 2003 invasion. In January 2005, at age 22, Chérif was arrested as he and another man were about to leave for Syria, then a gateway to Iraq. In Fleury-Mérogis Prison he met Amedy Coulibaly and found a mentor in Djamel Beghal. Beghal had been sentenced in 2001 to ten years for a plot to bomb the US embassy in Paris.

  On leaving prison, Chérif married and took a job at a fish market on the outskirts of Paris. He became a student of Farid Benyettou, a radical preacher at the Addawa Mosque in the 19th arrondissement. Chérif wanted to attack Jewish targets in France. Benyettou told him that France, unlike Iraq, was not "a land of jihad". On the 28th of March 2008, Chérif was convicted for recruiting fighters for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's group in Iraq. He received three years, with 18 months suspended. He said outrage at the torture of inmates at Abu Ghraib had driven him.

  In 2010, French judicial documents say, Coulibaly and Chérif travelled with their wives to central France to visit Beghal. That year the brothers were also named in a plot to break an Islamist named Belkacem out of jail. Belkacem was one of those responsible for the 1995 Paris Métro and RER bombings, which killed eight people. For lack of evidence, the brothers were not prosecuted.

  Saïd spent 2009 to 2010 in Yemen on a student visa, studying at the San'a Institute for the Arabic Language. He returned in 2011 for several months and trained with militants of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. A senior Yemeni intelligence source said he met the preacher Anwar al-Awlaki in the southern province of Shabwa. Chérif later told BFM TV that a network loyal to al-Awlaki had funded him. Al-Awlaki died in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

  According to US officials, Washington gave France intelligence in 2011 showing that the brothers had trained in Yemen. French authorities kept them under watch until the spring of 2014. Saïd then lived with his wife and children in a block of flats in Reims, where neighbours described him as solitary.

  Belgian press reported that the weapons came through the Brussels underworld. A criminal sold Coulibaly the rocket-propelled grenade launcher and Kalashnikov rifles for less than 5,000 euros.

  Michael Morell, a former deputy director of the CIA, called the motive "absolutely clear: trying to shut down a media organisation that lampooned the Prophet Muhammad". In his BFM TV interview, Chérif insisted, "We are not killers. We are defenders of the prophet, we don't kill women." On the 9th of January, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed the attack in a speech by its top Shariah cleric, Harith bin Ghazi al-Nadhari. He cited "revenge for the honour" of Muhammad.

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• 6. Manhunt and Siege

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  The search began the moment the gunmen left Paris behind. One suspect had dropped his ID card in the abandoned getaway car, and police searched apartments across Île-de-France, in Strasbourg and in Reims. Seven friends and relatives of the brothers were taken into custody. France raised its terror alert to its highest level and sent soldiers into Île-de-France and Picardy.

  At first police believed there were three suspects. An 18-year-old, the brother-in-law of Chérif Kouachi, turned himself in early on the 8th of January at a police station in Charleville-Mézières, about 200 km northeast of Paris. He said he had been in class during the shooting, and classmates backed him up. After holding him for nearly 50 hours, police dropped their investigation of the teenager.

  At 10:30 CET on the 8th, the two real suspects were spotted in Aisne. The National Gendarmerie Intervention Group, known as the GIGN, and the police unit FIPN moved into the department. The brothers robbed a petrol station near Villers-Cotterêts and were reported to have abandoned their car before hiding in a forest near Longpont. The search widened into the Forêt de Retz, which covers 130 square kilometres and ranks among the largest forests in France.

  Early on the 9th of January, the brothers hijacked a Peugeot 206 near Crépy-en-Valois. Police cars chased them about 27 km south along the N2 trunk road. Near the commune of Dammartin-en-Goële, 35 km northeast of Paris, the brothers abandoned the car and traded fire with their pursuers. Several blasts went off and Saïd suffered a minor neck wound, though nobody was killed. The pair escaped on foot.

  At around 9:30 a.m., they ran into Création Tendance Découverte, a signage company on an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goële. Owner Michel Catalano was inside with 26-year-old graphic designer Lilian Lepère, whom he told to hide. A salesman named Didier arrived on business and met Chérif, who introduced himself as a police officer. Then Chérif said, "Leave. We don't kill civilians anyhow." Those words made Didier suspect a terrorist, and he alerted the police.

  Inside, the brothers showed Catalano no aggression. He made coffee for them and helped bandage Saïd's neck. Later he said, "I didn't get the impression they were going to harm me." After an hour he was allowed to leave, having sworn three times that he was alone. The brothers never learned of Lepère. He lay in a cardboard box for about three hours, texting the Gendarmerie details such as the brothers' location in the building.

  The site lay 10 km from Charles de Gaulle Airport, so two runways were closed. A school stood 500 m away, and officials tried to open contact to negotiate its safe evacuation. The brothers did not respond. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve called for a Gendarmerie operation. By around 4:30 p.m. at least three explosions had been heard near the building, and at about 5:00 p.m. a GIGN team landed on the roof. Before gendarmes reached them, the brothers ran out firing and were shot dead. They had spoken of wanting to die as martyrs. Lepère was rescued unharmed, and a cache of weapons, including Molotov cocktails and a rocket launcher, was found nearby.

  Across Paris, Coulibaly had taken hostages in a kosher supermarket at Porte de Vincennes. He killed those of Jewish faith and left the others alive. He was reportedly in touch with the brothers and told police he would kill hostages if they were harmed. He and the Kouachis died within minutes of each other. Two days later, France would answer in the streets.

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• 7. Je Suis Charlie

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  On the evening of the 7th of January, crowds gathered at the Place de la République in Paris, and demonstrations broke out in Toulouse, Nice, Lyon, Marseille and Rennes. An estimated 35,000 people held signs in Paris. Lyon and Rennes drew 15,000 each, Nice and Toulouse 10,000 each, Marseille 7,000, and Nantes, Grenoble and Bordeaux 5,000 each. More than 100,000 people took part across France that night.

  The slogan on the placards was Je suis Charlie, French for "I am Charlie". It appeared on hand-made signs, on phone screens at vigils and on media sites such as Le Monde. The hashtag #jesuischarlie quickly topped Twitter's trending list worldwide.

  Vigils spread abroad within hours. About 2,000 people gathered in London's Trafalgar Square and sang La Marseillaise. In Montreal, over 1,000 people chanted "Liberty!" and "Charlie!" at -21 °C outside the French Consulate. Mayor Denis Coderre told them, "Today, we are all French!" By the 8th of January, vigils had reached Australia, where mourners at Sydney's Martin Place wore white. More than 100 demonstrations were held across the Netherlands that evening.

  On the 10th of January, around 700,000 people marched in France, with 180,000 in Toulouse alone. The next day, the 11th, up to 2 million people filled central Paris, including President François Hollande and more than 40 world leaders. They walked from Place de la République to Place de la Nation to honour the 17 victims. Another 3.7 million joined demonstrations across the country, which officials called the largest public rally in France since World War II.

  Hollande called the shooting a "terrorist attack of the most extreme barbarity" and the slain journalists "heroes", and he declared a day of national mourning for the 8th of January. Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo proposed that Charlie Hebdo be adopted as a citizen of honour of the city. Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France was at war with terrorism but not with Islam or Muslims.

  The magazine did not miss an issue. Its next edition ran to 7.95 million copies in six languages, against a usual print run of 60,000, of which it typically sold 30,000 to 35,000. The cover showed Muhammad holding a "Je suis Charlie" sign, captioned "Tout est pardonné", or "All is forgiven". The Digital Innovation Press Fund gave 250,000 euros, matching a donation from the French Press and Pluralism Fund, and the Guardian Media Group pledged 100,000 pounds.

  Many Muslim institutions condemned the attack, among them Egypt's Al-Azhar University, the French Council of the Muslim Faith and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. Malek Merabet, brother of the slain officer Ahmed, said, "My brother was Muslim and he was killed by two terrorists, by two false Muslims." Online, the hashtag #JeSuisAhmed trended as a tribute to the officer, with the line "I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop." The Economist compared it to a quote commonly misattributed to Voltaire about defending to the death your right to say it.

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• 8. Dissent and Aftershocks

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  On the day of the attack, English-language outlets including Bloomberg News and The Huffington Post republished the cartoons on their websites. The New York Times, CNN and the Associated Press covered the story without showing the drawings, and Politico and Slate accused some of self-censorship. The BBC, whose guidelines had barred depictions of Muhammad, showed a Charlie Hebdo cover and announced a review. In Germany, the Hamburger Morgenpost re-published the cartoons, and its office was fire-bombed.

  Some public figures broke with the chorus. David Brooks wrote in The New York Times under the title "I Am Not Charlie Hebdo", arguing the magazine's humour was childish but necessary. Noam Chomsky called the slogan hypocritical, noting that no one chanted "We are RTV" after the 1999 NATO bombing of Radio Television of Serbia killed 16 employees. Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki said, "I think it's a mistake to caricaturise the figures venerated by another culture. You shouldn't do it." Salman Rushdie took the opposite view: "I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire."

  Reporters Without Borders questioned why leaders from Egypt, Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, which it called predators of press freedom, had come to Paris to honour the magazine. Elsewhere, praise for the killings came from militant groups, among them al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the Taliban, Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram. Around 40 to 60 people gathered in Peshawar to call the gunmen heroes. In France, students at several schools rejected or disrupted the mandated minute of silence, though most pupils at the school in Saint-Denis condemned the attack. About 54 people were arrested as apologists for terrorism, and around 12 received jail sentences of several months.

  The post-attack issue triggered violence abroad. In Niger, unrest left ten dead and at least 45 churches burned. In Karachi, Agence France-Presse photographer Asif Hassan was seriously injured by a shot to the chest. In France, 54 anti-Muslim incidents were reported in the week after the shooting, including 21 shootings or grenade attacks on mosques and other Islamic centres. Authorities classified them as right-wing terrorism. In Verviers, Belgium, a police raid left two suspected terrorists dead, and seized documents appeared to show they had planned to attack sellers of the new issue.

  Copenhagen saw the next major attack. On the 14th of February 2015, a public event called "Art, blasphemy and the freedom of expression" was held to honour the victims, and shootings that day and the next killed two people and wounded five police officers. The suspect, Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, was shot dead by police on the 15th. On the 3rd of May 2015, two men attacked the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, where an exhibit of Muhammad cartoons was being held. Police killed both gunmen. On the first anniversary, the 7th of January 2016, a man wearing a fake explosive belt charged police with a meat cleaver at a Paris station in the Goutte d'Or district and was shot dead.

  The courts took longer. In December 2018, French authorities arrested Peter Cherif, a close friend of the Kouachi brothers who had been on the run since 2011, for an "important role in organising" the attack. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2024. On the 2nd of September 2020, fourteen people went on trial in Paris for providing logistical support and weapons to both the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attackers. Three of them, including Coulibaly's girlfriend Hayat Boumeddiene, were tried in absentia. Charlie Hebdo reprinted its Muhammad cartoons for the occasion under the caption "Tout ça pour ça", meaning "All of that for this". France scheduled the proceedings to be filmed for its official archives, and on the 16th of December 2020 all fourteen defendants were convicted.

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