French President Emmanuel Macron tweets the names of the victims of the deadly terrorist attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015.
“We will never forget you,” Macron continued.
French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne also marked the anniversary of the attack. She writes on Twitter that the republic continues to stand up against Islamic terrorism and continues:
“For their families, for our values, for our freedom: We do not forget.”
Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak writes: “Satire, irreverence, the French tradition of satirical cartoons are inherent in our democracy. We continue to defend them.”
Eight years have passed since two brothers with links to al-Qaeda killed twelve people in the newspaper’s editorial office, in revenge for the newspaper’s decision to publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Five more people were killed in the following days by a man with links to the brothers. He first shot dead a policeman and the next day killed four hostages in a Jewish grocery store in Paris.
This week, the Iranian regime promised countermeasures against France after Charlie Hebdo published “insulting” cartoons mocking Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
According to Charlie Hebdo, the satirical cartoons were part of a competition launched in December in support of the protests in the country that began after the killing of the young woman Mahsa Zhina Amini.
Iran has since summoned France’s ambassador and vowed to close a French research institute in Tehran.