Following the murderous attack on Charlie Hebdo two years ago today, the satirical paper was catapulted to global celebrity. The French state claimed Charlie as one of its own, President François Hollande equating the killings to an attack on all French. While hypocritically linking arms with tyrants and dictators, Hollande fronted “republican” marches that drew millions onto streets across France, under the Je Suis Charlie slogan. Charlie became a byword for freedom of expression. Once a thorn in the side of the French elites, it was now the incarnation of traditional republican values.

Whether Charlie liked it or not, it had also become an avatar of Western antagonism to Islam. Its writers have refuted this cooptation, insisting that they target Islamism rather than ordinary Muslims.  They further deny that their caricatures of Muhammad and other Islamic figures constitute Islamophobia (indeed they deny Islamophobia per se), simply stating that they act in their longstanding anticlerical tradition and France’s strong secular laïcité convention.

As lead cartoonist and victim Cabu himself stated not long before the attack: