French newspaper Charlie Hebdo has launched a special issue to show that its cause is still alive, exactly 10 years after jihadist shootings killed most of its editorial staff.

Things changed in France on January 7, 2015, with bloodshed marking the end of any willful naiveté about the militant Islamist threat.

Brothers Said and Sharif Kouachi Bursts into a meeting at the Paris offices of a satirical weekly and murders the magazine’s star cartoonists Kabu, Wolinsky, Chubb and Tinios.

A total of 12 people were killed by the brothers, including a Muslim policeman on duty outside. Two days later, they were cornered by police and shot to death at a sign-making shop near Charles de Gaulle Airport.

On the same day, Sharif’s former prison cellmate Amedy Coulibaly murdered four Jews in a simultaneous hostage-taking at a supermarket in eastern Paris. Coulibaly was shot dead by police after killing a female police officer the day before.

Ten years on, Charlie Hebdo continues to publish a weekly magazine with a circulation (print and online editions combined) of approximately 50,000.

Its offices are kept secret and staff are protected by bodyguards.

But in an editorial in Tuesday’s commemorative edition, the paper’s major shareholders said the paper’s crude anti-religious irreverence was still very much alive.

“The desire to laugh never goes away,” said cartoonist Laurent Saurisseau, also known as Riss, who survived the January 7 attack after being shot in the shoulder.

“There’s a virtue in irony that helps us get through these tragic times – optimism. If people want to laugh, it’s because they want to live.

“Laughter, sarcasm and cartoons are all expressions of optimism,” he writes.

The 32-page special feature also includes 40 winning works from the cartoon competition with the theme of “Mocking God.”

One contains an image in which a cartoonist asked himself: “Is it okay to draw a picture of a person drawing a person drawing Muhammad?”

Charlie Hebdo and cache attack It now appears to have been the prelude to a grim and deadly period in modern France, during which the fear of jihadist terrorism was once part of daily life.

In November 2015, shootings occurred at the Bataclan theater and nearby bars in Paris. The following July, 86 people were killed on Nice’s promenade.

About 300 French people have been killed in Islamist attacks in the past decade.

The frequency has dropped significantly today, and the defeat is certain. Islamic State Group Meaning there is no longer a support base in the Middle East.

But killers who self-radicalize on the Internet remain a persistent threat in France and elsewhere.

The original pretext for the Charlie Hebdo murders – caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad – is now strictly prohibited from publication in publications everywhere.

2020, a French teacher Samuel Patty He was beheaded by a jihadist outside his school after showing a caricature of Charlie during a discussion about free speech.

A trial opened in Paris this week of a Pakistani man who, shortly before Patty was murdered, seriously injured two people with a butcher knife at the Paris offices he believed Charlie Hebdo still used (in fact, They have already moved).

On every anniversary since 2015, the question France is asked again is: what, if anything, has changed? In the days following the murders, the outpouring of international support was a clarion call for I Am Charlie, so what, if anything, will survive?

At that time, at the invitation of then-President François Hollande, heads of state and government from around the world participated in a march of 2 million people through the center of Paris.

Today, pessimists say the battle is over and lost. There is zero chance that a humorous newspaper would mount an attack on Islam as violently as Charlie Hebdo often did against Christianity and Judaism.

To make matters worse for these people, parts of France’s political left are now also visibly distancing themselves from Charlie Hebdo, accusing the paper of being too anti-Islamic and adopting far-right stances.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of France’s Insurgent Party, accused the weekly of being “a burden for (right-wing magazine) Valeurs Actuels”, while Sandrine Rousseau of the Green Party said Charlie Hebdo was “misogynistic and sometimes racist” “.

This in turn has led to accusations against the far left that it has betrayed the free-speech ethos of “I am Charlie” in order to win over electoral support among French Muslims.

But as the anniversary approaches, Reese refuses to give up hope. Reese considered the deceased his best friend and said he relives the moments of the attack every day.

“I think (Charlie’s spirit) has deeper roots in society than people think. When you talk to people you can see it’s very much alive. The idea that it’s gone away is a mistake.

“It’s part of our collective memory.”