On October 16, Samuel Paty, a history teacher at a college in Yvelines, was the victim of an Islamist attack for showing his students caricatures of Mohammed, as part of a course on freedom of expression.
Since the resumption in 2006, by Charlie Hebdo, of caricatures of the prophet from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, these drawings have continued to generate controversy and drama, which targeted the editorial staff of the satirical newspaper: an arson in 2011, then an attack in 2015.
This means of expression is not, however, new.
France has a long tradition of protest drawing.
France 24 offers you a look back on this thousand-year-old history.
In the middle Ages
In the Middle Ages, caricature, whose origins date back to ancient Greece, continues to spread.
"The first engravings, which appear at the end of the 14th century, are made on wood", describes the BNF website.
They are found "in the exterior and interior sculptures of churches or in miniatures: grotesque characters, fantastic and symbolic animals".
But it was the rise of printing from the 15th century that helped popularize caricatures.
The drawings are notably used by supporters of the Protestant Reformation to make fun of the Pope.
In France, King Henry III was also the victim of a cartoon campaign preceding his assassination.
"The explosion of political caricature always corresponds to periods of crisis; in addition, it is strongly linked to the material status of the document and the means of its distribution (image inserted in a pamphlet, sold in loose leaf or in series, poster , illustration of an "occasional" press cartoon appearing in an illustrated periodical) ", summarizes the site of the BNF.
During the French Revolution
But according to the historian Annie Duprat, it is especially the period of the revolution which sees "an explosion of caricatures".
"When Pope Pius VI condemns the Civil Constitution of the Clergy voted by the National Constituent Assembly in the spring of 1791, the reaction of Jacques Bonhomme - emblematic figure of the Frenchman 'well from home' - is not long in coming: he wipes himself the behind laughing with the brief of the pope, that is to say an administrative act drafted by the pope intending an order intended for the faithful ", she takes for example in an article for The Conversation.
For this historian, caricature then becomes a real "political language in the process of empowerment".
According to the BNF, 1,500 satirical engravings were made between 1789 and 1792.
"Brief of the Pope in 1791", a response to the bubble "Caritas" of Pope Pius VI in which he denounced the "Civil Constitution".
M © Paris Museums / Carnavalet Museum
The July Monarchy
The king is the main target of cartoonists.
In the 19th century, with the growth of the press, illustrated periodicals will develop strongly.
Under the July Monarchy, it was Louis-Philippe who paid the price and got angry.
The cartoonist Daumier spent six months in prison for having depicted Louis-Philippe as Gargantua, then took up the motif of the pear representing the face of the king, created by Philipon.
The latter himself will be sentenced to six months in prison for "insulting the person of the king".
In 1835, a law re-established censorship (which had been abolished in 1824 by Charles X) for drawings, engravings and lithographs.
The Dreyfus affair
We had to wait for new press freedom laws, including that of 1881, to see a new outbreak of cartoons.
At the end of the 19th century, the Dreyfus affair offered designers a first-rate polemic to give free rein to their imagination.
The famous cartoon by Caran d'Ache, "They spoke about it", depicting a heated debate within a family about the affair, published in Le Figaro, has even since entered history.
The famous drawing by Caran d'Ache about the Dreyfus affair.
© Wikimedia
During the First World War
At the start of the Great War, "a large part of the French satirical press did not survive the first days of the conflict" because "of the interruption of publication due to the state of siege, the departure into battle of many cartoonists or even shortages of all kinds ", as historian Laurent Bihl notes, on the site of the centenary mission.
But the "surviving leaves are in a position of strength" and participate "in the stuffing of skulls" by fueling propaganda against the enemy.
This period also saw the emergence of new publications, including the Canard Enchaîné, created in 1915.
May 68 and Charlie Hebdo
During the Second World War, censorship abolished cartoons for many, even if in collaborationist newspapers, they remained present in particular to serve anti-Semitic propaganda.
It was not until the 1950s that the designs became political again.
In particular, cartoons on General de Gaulle abound.
The designers go to great lengths to denounce the authoritarian nature of the regime and compare it to other historical figures, such as Louis XIV and Napoleon.
Cartoonists repeatedly present the general as an absolute ruler and ridicule his image.
A photo taken on a wall in Paris, in September 1958, of a PCF poster calling for a vote "no" in the referendum on the Constitution of the Fifth Republic proposed by General de Gaulle and that his opponents equate to a plebiscite .
AFP
It was during this period, in 1960, that Hara-Kiri, the stupid and malicious newspaper was born, first in the form of a monthly, then a weekly in 1969. Cavanna and Georges Bernier said "Professor Choron ", its creators, play on the register of provocation vis-à-vis the well-meaning public and its values.
A year later, it is banned after a biting cover on the death of Charles de Gaulle "Tragic ball in Colombey - 1 death".
It was reborn in 1972 under the title of Charlie Hebdo.
But as the BNF website explains, we are nevertheless witnessing a change: "Press cartoon will gradually replace caricature and training, the status and practices of press cartoonists are evolving. They claim to be cartoonists-journalists" .
Against all odds, Charlie Hebdo continues to exist despite a temporary disappearance, for lack of readers, in the 1980s. It is the target of numerous complaints, mainly from the extreme right and from Catholic associations.
But it is his treatment of Islam that draws him threats.
They will lead to the attack of January 7, 2015, claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which left 12 dead.
The famous cover of November 16, 1970 from Charlie Hebdo to announce the death of General de Gaulle.
FRANCOIS GUILLOT AFP / Archives
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