Dilara Gürcü talks to the amazing Caroline Fourest.

Let’s begin by talking about Charlie Hebdo. How would you define Charlie Hebdo?

Charlie Hebdo is a satirical newspaper, it’s a paper known to make people laugh about all types of power, domination and ideology. It’s very important to understand that no cartoon in Charlie Hebdo goes to publication without context. The fanatics and the literalists cannot or do not want to understand this. It probably did a hundred times more caricatures of the Pope, the Catholic Church then of Islam. They’re making caricatures about politics a lot, all types of politicians but especially the extreme right. The worst enemy of Charlie Hebdo is National Front and Marine Le Pen. There were lots of caricatures about Nicholas Sarkozy as well because it’s a leftist newspaper. It defends another type of economy, a less capitalistic one. Charlie Hebdo defended Palestine as well, yet it is less known. Charb and Tignous who got killed were strong pro-Palestine activists and there were many caricatures about Israeli soldiers at Gaza in Charlie Hebdo. It’s a newspaper reacting to the actuality. It means that if a Rabbi would kill in the name of defending Moses, then probably Moses would be the cover, as that would be the current actuality.

Then they talk about Charlie Hebdo’s publication of the Danish Motoons and the way Iran and Saudi and Syria used the cartoons as a way to distract their populations from more substantial problems.

Suddenly spontaneous crowds started to demonstrate in those countries, where we know demonstrations are not so free. “Spontaneous” crowds started burning Danish embassies. In Charlie Hebdo, we had one job as any newspaper did, to cover the actuality, so we did. But as we are Charlie Hebdo, we wanted to cover the actuality in our way. We published those cartoons inside the newspaper and our cover was different. We decided in a meeting that these fanatics are always making Mohamed speak in their sense, giving a bad image about religion. We wanted to portray Mohamed thinking he cannot stand those fanatics speaking and killing in his name. So in that cover Mohamed is almost in tears and saying “it’s so hard to be loved by assholes!” That cover is the reason why they killed my colleagues because the death threats started after that.

It was a benign intention, and that’s why they killed her colleagues. It’s terrible.

They talk about France’s long history of laughing at religion, and the way some countries make one religion official.

In France, we want every religion to be equal, and no religion is favored or prioritized by the state. To obtain that, we had to fight the Catholic Church, which was connected to state back in the medieval times and during the monarchy times. We established a secular republic by fighting against this. In order to fight we had to first de-symbolize the sacred power of the Catholic Church. It was a very insulting and violent process. For example in Charlie Hebdo, the actuality of pedophilia in church was covered many times, by portraying priests as child molesters.

Religion gets a huge boost from the most literal version of the halo effect. Mockery is a counterweight to that.

And what about that cartoonist who was fired from CH because of anti-Semitism? Was that favoritism?

I know this story very well and the propaganda that goes with it. Siné was fired because he insulted our director, wrote a lie in his column and then refused to correct it. This is something unacceptable in journalism! Yes, he used all racist clichés about Jews in his column. As I said, Charlie Hebdo is an antiracist newspaper. It defends the right to mock ideas or belief but not being racist against people. This is also against the antiracist law in France. A few years ago, Charlie Hebdo’s director did the same thing with another journalist who supported a writer who attacked Muslims. Surprisingly no one was shocked this time or no one noticed that this is solid proof that Charlie Hebdo is an antiracist newspaper. What is strange to me is why some people are accusing Charlie Hebdo of being Islamophobic yet they refuse to see that Charlie Hebdo does not incorporate racist journalists? Is it because for some people being racist against Jewish people is OK but blasphemy is not? I think we all know what their problem is.

To be continued.