France commemorated 10 years since the 2015 Île-de-France region jihadist attacks, holding tributes and ceremonies to those murdered and wounded in the Charlie Hebdo satire magazine office shooting, the Montrouge shooting, and the Hypercacher kosher supermarket massacre.
French President Emmanuel Macron, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, and other ministers and city officials last Tuesday paid homage to the 12 people murdered on January 7, 2015, during an attack by two Islamist gunmen on the Charlie Hebdo offices, which had published satires about religions including Islam and cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
A moment of silence was held and wreaths were laid outside the site of the magazine’s former office for cartoonist Jean “Cabu” Cabut, columnist Elsa Cayat, publication director Stéphane “Charb” Charbonnier, cartoonist Philippe Honoré, columnist Bernard Maris, copy editor Mustapha Ourrad, cartoonist Bernard “Tignous” Verlhac, cartoonist Georges Wolinski, maintenance worker Frédéric Boisseau, travel writer Michel Renaud, Protection Service officer Franck Brinsolaro, and police officer Ahmed Merabet.
After the service, Macron and the entourage of officials went to the nearby plaque for Merabet, who was wounded and then executed by the gunmen not far from the offices.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou said on social media that the victims had died for freedom of expression.
"“This is our mourning and this is our fight,” said Bayrou.
Hidalgo said on Instagram on Tuesday that for the people of Paris, “denying freedom means denying themselves.”“For me, the Charlie spirit is all of that at once and it has never left me. I have forgotten nothing of those terrible days of January 2015, I remember them as if they were yesterday.”
Charlie Hebdo director Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, who was wounded in the attack, published an editorial last Monday reflecting how the satire magazine had abruptly become not just a commentator, but a political actor and institution in its own right.
“If Charlie collapsed and disappeared, the terrorists won,” wrote Sourisseau. “If Charlie managed to get back on its feet, the terrorists failed. Continuing the newspaper meant proving that the ideas we had been fighting for years, through texts and drawings, had not been just chatter, but the expression of our deep convictions.”
Sourisseau said the spirit of Charlie, the urge to laugh and skewer, were universal and timeless manifestations of optimism, but warned that the values of secularism and freedom of expression remained under threat as the geopolitical situation, authoritarianism, and fanaticism had only grown worse since 2015.
Macron and Bayrou attended another ceremony on Wednesday in the Paris suburb of Montrouge to pay respects to municipal police brigadier Clarissa Jean-Philippe, who was shot by the jihadist who would later attack the Hypercacher supermarket.
“Clarissa Jean-Philippe was struck down by bullets fired in hatred 10 years ago, killed because she was wearing the uniform,” Bayrou said on X. “Her name stands for the bravery and devotion of those who serve. We will not forget her.”
Republic and city officials also went last Tuesday to the site of the Hypercacher attack to pay tribute, where wreaths were laid by Sourisseau and another member of the Charlie team and Israelite Central Consistory of France president Joël Mergui and Paris Chief Rabbi Michel Gugenheim.
The Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) held a ceremony at the site on Thursday, the exact date that 10 years ago the gunman who murdered Jean-Philippe had entered the Hypercacher store and murdered Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, and François-Michel Saada. The gunman had sought revenge for Palestinians and held the supermarket’s occupants hostage seeking the safety of the Hebdo killers.
“Murdered 10 years ago because they were Jews by a terrorist steeped in antisemitism and Islamism,” CRIF head Yonathan Arfi said on social media on Thursday. “More than ever, their memory is a call to continue the fight against antisemitism.”
Remembering the victims
The family members of the victims and officials lit candles, with four candles to represent each victim, a fifth in memory of the Hebdo victims, and a sixth for the French service people who fell fighting the Hebdo attackers.
A seventh candle was lit in the memory of the victims of antisemitic murders and terrorism since the new millennium, another in the memory of victims of Islamism Samuel Paty and Dominique Bernard. A ninth candle was lit to honor the 42 French citizens murdered during the October 7 massacre in Israel, and the two French hostages still held by Gazan terrorist groups.
A final candle was lit to commemorate all the victims of terrorism in the world, including the recent Magdeburg and New Orleans car-ramming attacks
Gugenheim recited psalms and kaddish for the victims, and French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia and Director of the National Service for Relations with Judaism of the Conference of Bishops of France Father Christophe Le Sourt led a prayer for the Republic of France.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, who was one of the officials who lit the candle for French officers, promised on X, “We will never forget the victims of this heinous antisemitic crime. We owe it to them to continue relentlessly the fight against Islamist barbarity.”
Israeli Ambassador to France Joshua Zarka lit the candle for the victims of the October 7 attacks, later noting on X, “The fight against the antisemitic scourge and the war against terrorism is being played out at every moment.”
Evening of debates and tribute
On Thursday evening, Charlie Hebdo and CRIF organized an evening of debates and tribute to “reaffirm a shared republican commitment to freedom of expression, against antisemitism and Islamism, and for secularism.
At the event, Sourisseau noted that they had gathered in the shadow of the October 7 massacre and the conflict in Gaza. He bemoaned that it took tragedies such as those in January 2025 for citizens to realize their commonalities, and unity was needed to fight against totalitarianism and terrorism.
Ye,t as France sought to commemorate the 2015 victims, extremism and antisemitism again reared their head in the country. Saint-Mandé Mayor Julien Weil said in a Monday statement that around 30 Stars of David had been inscribed on shops and walls in Saint-Mandé and Vincennes near Paris, including near the site of the Hypercacher attack.
The Rouen Synagogue, which in May had been firebombed by a knife-wielding attacker, was vandalized with Nazi swastikas. A rabbi’s home and a law office were also graffitied, in what Arfi said to local media was part of the same extremism that led to the 2015 attacks.