French cartoonist Aurel on the plight of his profession ten years after Charlie attacks
French editorial cartoonist Aurel (real name Aurélien Froment) this month published an essay in the format of an album warning of the steady decline of his profession, which he argues is due to the economic difficulties of the printed press, and the hijacking of what is termed the “Charlie spirit”, the term used to describe the irreverence exercised by the team of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who were gunned down by Jihadist terrorists in January 2015. “Colleagues were assassinated because of their cartoons on religious themes,” he tells Mediapart’s Yunnes Abzouz. “But that’s not a reason it should become the alpha and omega of our freedom of expression.”
TheThe attack by Islamic terrorists against the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris on January 7th 2015, which left 12 dead and 11 wounded, caused widespread shock and indignation in France, illustrated in a nationwide turnout of more than four million people protesting the massacre and other attacks perpetrated days later, notably a hostage-taking at a kosher supermarket close to the capital when four people were killed and nine others wounded.
