French magazine has regularly targeted Islam

The French satirical magazine where the shooting took place has a history of causing controversy with cartoons of Islam’s prophet Mohammed.

Charlie Hebdo is a weekly political and social French newspaper with no adverts and its content is not influenced by external shareholders.

Its offices were firebombed three years ago after it published a special edition titled Charia Hebdo and “invited” the Prophet Mohammed as its guest editor.

No one was injured in the attack.

Speaking to the BBC after the attack in November 2011, the paper’s editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier said the incident had only confirmed it was right to take the stance that it did.

He said: “This tells me we are right to publish the magazine, and we are right to continue defying Islamists and make their lives difficult as much as they do ours.

“If we can poke fun at everything in France, if we can talk about anything in France apart from Islam or the consequences of Islamism, that is annoying,” he said.

Mr Charbonnier, also known as Charb, said the attack was the act of “idiot extremists” and not representative of all Muslims who live in France.

In 2007, Charlie Hebdo reprinted 12 controversial cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad that were first shown in a Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, and caused outrage in the Muslim world.

The magazine was sued for incitement to racism by two Islamic groups in France, but was cleared by a Paris court. Mr Charbonnier insisted that the publication of Mohammad caricatures was no provocation, but a signal that free speech was alive and well in the country.

He also said the paper would not stop criticising whatever it wanted.

On its Facebook page, the paper is described as “weekly satirical, political and social, without ads and or external influences”.

Reports in France have suggested the attack was carried out during editorial conference to discuss the next issue of the magazine — an Islam-themed edition.

The issue which is believed to have led to the attack in 2011 featured a cover showing Mohammed saying: “100 lashes if you are not dying of laughter.”

It also featured an editorial attributed to the prophet and more cartoons, including him with a clown’s red nose. Any depiction of Prophet Mohammed is strictly prohibited in Islam.

First established in 1969, the magazine was launched as monthly publication Charlie Mensuel. A year later it became a weekly, but in 1982 closed after running into financial trouble.

A decade later Charlie Hebdo was back and in 2009 it celebrated its 900th edition and launched its website.