French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte paid tribute to 11 people shot and killed on the third anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre.
Pictured alongside Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, the trio began the commemoration at the former premises of Charlie Hebdo, where two brothers armed with assault rifles murdered many of the publication’s cartoonists and writers in 2015.
During the three-day killing spree, gunmen killed reporters and illustrators at the satirical weekly, as well as police officers and shoppers at a Jewish supermarket.
French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte paid tribute to 11 people shot and killed on the third anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo massacre. Pictured alongside Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo, the trio began the commemoration at the former premises of Charlie Hebdo
During the three-day killing spree in 2015, gunmen killed reporters and illustrators at the satirical weekly, as well as police officers and shoppers at a Jewish supermarket (Macron and Brigitte appear solemn during a one minute silence for the victims of the attack)
The names of the victims were read out before wreathes were laid in front of the office building, including one by Macron and Hidalgo.
Homage was then paid at the nearby site where a policeman was shot dead at point-blank range by one of the gunmen.
A similar tribute was later held at the kosher store where a third gunman killed four people.
The Charlie Hebdo attack was carried out by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who died in a police assault two days later.
The perpetrator of the attack on the Jewish store, Amedy Coulibaly, also shot dead a policewoman in a separate incident.
Coulbaly was also killed by police in a shootout.
The names of the victims were read out before wreathes were laid in front of the office building, including one by Macron and Hidalgo. Homage was then paid at the nearby site where a policeman was shot dead at point-blank range by one of the gunmen
Meanwhile sales of the controversial publication have fallen since an initial spike immediately following the attack, leaving shareholders with an increasingly large security bill to foot
Meanwhile sales of the controversial publication have fallen since an initial spike immediately following the attack, leaving shareholders with an increasingly large security bill to foot.
Faced with a constant deluge of death threats on social media, the magazine has been forced to install security systems and hire bodyguards in addition to police protection.
In its most recent issue, under the headline ‘Three years in a tin can,’ Laurent Sourisseau, the director of the publication and its main shareholder, complained that the magazine had been left to fend for itself.
‘Is it normal for a newspaper in a democratic country that one out of every two copies sold goes on paying for the security of its offices?’, wrote Sourisseau.