Paris (AFP)

For Charlie Hebdo's 50th anniversary, Riss, the managing editor, wonders about "the infinite freedom of speech" at a time when "verbal diarrhea has invaded the planet", a "paradox" for the satirical weekly "born of an act of censorship".

"Did Charlie Hebdo of 1970 imagine that speech would ever be released at this point?"

Riss asks in the editorial of the issue to be published Wednesday, "half a century" after the very first, on November 23, in response to a government desire to silence the monthly Hara Kiri.

The latter had titled, after the death of De Gaulle in Colombey-les-deux-Églises on November 9, 1970, "Tragic ball in Colombey, un mort", a satirical allusion to the fire of a dance hall which had done more than 'a hundred deaths that month.

The Interior Ministry having decided to ban the display and sale to minors of the monthly, his team had launched a weekly version - Charlie Hebdo, a nod to the general - to get around this virtual ban.

Charlie Hebdo, "who claimed greater freedom of speech," continues Riss, "today finds itself in the midst of a cacophony of countless opinions" especially on social networks.

"Verbal diarrhea has invaded the planet, and we must deploy superhuman vigilance to sort out (...) between true and false, harassment and invasions of privacy, insults and death threats" , underlines the designer.

"In fifty years, we have gone from one extreme to another, from a cautious society where information was watched out of the corner of the eye by the authorities to an ultra-media society where anyone can say no. 'Anything publicly, without any reservation or fear of any sanction, "he laments.

"It is therefore paradoxical that a newspaper like Charlie Hebdo finds itself alongside those who would like to regulate this infinite freedom of speech", adds Riss.

"Because contrary to what one might think, Charlie never contested the idea that there are limits and that freedom of expression (...) cannot justify the propagation of violence, racism or fanaticism, ”he emphasizes.

"It is not the immense quantity of opinions which serves the freedom of expression, but the quality of what one publishes thanks to it", estimates Riss, inviting to "think with his small brain" before "opening his big mouth ".

"This is the minimum respect we owe to freedom of expression," he concludes.

This 50th anniversary comes at a special time for the newspaper, in the midst of the trial of the attacks that decimated its editorial staff in January 2015, and which has been the subject of new threats since the republication of the Muhammad cartoons on September 2.

Wednesday's issue, which traces the censorship attempts known since the creation of the newspaper, ironically on the front page of the time it will take for the religious sphere to "unstuck", showing representatives of Christianity, Judaism and islam cry with laughter when reading a copy of Charlie without drawings.

© 2020 AFP