FRENCH satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the target of a massacre by Islamist gunmen in 2015, today said it is republishing hugely controversial cartoons of Prophet Muhammad to mark the start of the trial this week of alleged accomplices in the attack.

“We will never lie down. We will never give up,” said director Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau in an editorial to go with the republication of the cartoons in the latest edition.

Twelve people, including some of France’s most celebrated cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015 when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a gun rampage at the paper’s offices in Paris.

The perpetrators were killed in the wake of the massacre, but 14 alleged accomplices in the attack, which also targeted a Jewish supermarket, will go on trial in the French capital tomorrow.

The cover of the latest Charlie Hebdo issue shows a dozen cartoons first published by Danish daily Jyllands-Posten in 2005 – and reprinted by Charlie Hebdo in 2006 – which unleashed a storm of anger across the Muslim world.

At the centre of the cover is a cartoon of Prophet Muhammad drawn by Jean Cabut, known as Cabu, who lost his life in the massacre.

“All of this, just for that,” said the front-page headline.

The editorial team wrote that now is the right time to republish the cartoons, saying it is “essential” as the trial opens.

“We have often been asked since January 2015 to print other caricatures of Muhammad.

“We have always refused to do so, not because it is prohibited – the law allows us to do so – but because there is a need for a good reason to do it, a reason that has meaning and brings something to the debate.”

The paper’s willingness to cause offence has made it a champion of free speech for many in France, while others believe it crosses the line too often.

But, the massacre united the country in grief, with the slogan #JeSuisCharlie (I Am Charlie) going viral. – AFP, September 1, 2020.