Two years on, Parisians remember Charlie Hebdo attacks

Record ID: 163367

  • Title: Two years on, Parisians remember Charlie Hebdo attacks
  • Date: 7th January 2017
  • Summary: DAMMARTIN-EN-GOELE, FRANCE (FILE - JANUARY 9, 2015) (REUTERS) HELICOPTERS FLYING OVERHEAD
  • Embargoed: 22nd January 2017 14:53
  • Keywords: Charlie Hebdo Paris magazine attack media anniversary Islamist cartoon
  • Location: PARIS AND DAMMARTIN-EN-GOELE, FRANCE / UNKNOWN LOCATION
  • City: PARIS AND DAMMARTIN-EN-GOELE, FRANCE / UNKNOWN LOCATION
  • Country: France
  • Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
  • Reuters ID: LVA0045Y2YZ47
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Two years ago today (January 7), Islamist gunmen attacked the office of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people in the first of a wave of militant attacks that has left more than 230 dead and triggered a state of emergency.
    The killing spree shocked the world and preceded further attacks that did little for the declining popularity of President Francois Hollande and deepened tensions between France's secular state and its large Muslim minority.
    The satirical magazine has moved its office to a secret location since the incident, but outside its old office where the carnage took place, stencils of the cartoonists adorned a corner wall depicting the cartoonists who lost their lives as Parisians continued to leave flowers to remember the victims.
    "Finally, coming here to paint these portraits is also a way to keep the memory alive but also to bring life back to these people. Because it's not only 15 dead bodies, it's also 15 lives that were destroyed. There are plenty of people that survived around them and who are probably suffering in this commemoration day more than anyone. This portrait is addressed to French people, to people in the neighbourhood, and to the families of the victims," painter Christian Guemy, known as "C215", told Reuters.
    Over a year Guemy has been drawing a series of portraits of the victims and survivors near the places the attacks took place.
    "It's moving. In fact, I didn't imagine it would be while going out of the subway. I didn't imagine I would be seized by emotion... and I can't explain like that. It's arresting," said a passerby, Olivier Larue.
    Charlie Hebdo, at the time of the attack a cash-starved publication whose office had been firebombed after it printed cartoons mocking the prophet Mohammad, has since been buoyed by millions of euros of subscriptions, many of them out of solidarity in countries where it was an almost unknown entity before the attacks.
    The two gunmen, brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, died in a police assault two days later at a printworks north of Paris.
    The Charlie Hebdo attack was followed a day later by the killing of a trainee policewoman by Amedy Coulibaly, an Islamic State loyalist. The following day he attacked a Jewish store on the edge of Paris, where he murdered four hostages before police killed him.
    In all, seventeen people were killed in the Charlie Hebdo and Hyper Cacher store attacks, as well as the three assailants.
    The wave of attacks has made security a key theme in campaigning ahead of this spring's presidential election in France, whose population of 66 million is mostly of Christian origin but also includes Europe's largest Jewish and Muslim communities.
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