Charlie Hebdo marks first anniversary of attacks on its offices

A special issue of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo went on sale in France on Wednesday, amid a week of official commemorations and other events paying tribute to the 17 people who were killed one year ago in attacks last January at the newspaper’s office and other locations in the Paris area.

Its controversial cover shows an angry bloodied God, toting a Kalashnikov with the words, “the assassin is still on the run”.

The newspaper has printed around a million copies of the issue, up from a typical print run of about 100,000, and it includes drawings by illustrators who were killed in the attacks as well as guest contributions.

Laurent Sourisseau, the newspaper’s editorial director, wrote, “It isn’t two little idiots in balaclavas who are going to screw up our life’s work.”

“They aren’t going to see Charlie die, it is Charlie that is going to see them die,” he added.

Last January Islamist militants opened fire during an editorial meeting of the paper. Twelve people were killed at the offices in Paris including many of the paper’s top staff such as editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier, known to readers as Charb. A shootout with police followed as the attackers made their escape, triggering a massive manhunt and further bloodshed.

It emerged that the gunmen, subsequently named as brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, were born and radicalised in Paris and known to the French authorities.

The following day a police woman was killed in a separate shootout in Montrouge, a southern suburb of Paris, by a gunman later identified as an ally of the Kouachi brothers.

The Kouachi brothers were eventually located and killed on 9 Januray during a siege at a print works in Dammartin-en-Goele. On the same day, a friend of the brothers, Amedy Coulibaly, took several hostages in a kosher supermarket near Paris, killing four, before a massive police raid released the remaining victims and killed Coulibaly himself.

Today, commemorative plaques are to be unveiled at key sites where shootings took place and on an oak tree will be planted in the Place de la Republique, in a ceremony on Saturday 9 January,  attended by French President Francois Holland.