French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the victims of Charlie Habdo attacks even as Iran reacted furiously to the satirical weekly’s latest edition mocking the Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Mentioning names of all 17 victims of a spate of attacks eight years ago in and around Paris, including the 12 people killed at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, Macron tweeted, “”We will never forget you.”
He also added a cartoon by the well-known French cartoonist Plantu below.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne also marked the anniversary of the attacks, which also involved a deadly siege at a kosher supermarket.
“In the face of Islamist terrorism, the Republic remains standing,” she tweeted. “For their families, for our values, for our liberty: we do not forget.”
The tributes came days after Tehran fumed over cartoons which mocked Iran’s supreme leadership in the latest issue of Charlie Hebdo, which appeared on Wednesday.
Charlie Hebdo Cartoon Mocking Iran’s Supreme Leader
Cartoonists were invited by the magazine to depict Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in the context of ongoing demonstrations against his theocratic regime, by women in particular.
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The graphic front cover sought to highlight the fight for women’s rights, while others were sexually explicit and insulting towards Khamenei and fellow clerics, reported AFP.
Many cartoons pointed to the authorities’ use of capital punishment as a tactic to quell the protests.
Iran’s Reaction
Reacting to the cartoons, Iran summoned France’s Ambassador and called on the government to hold “the authors of such hatred” to account.
On Thursday, it said it was closing the Tehran-based French Institute for Research (IFRI).
“France has no right to insult the sanctities of other Muslim countries and nations under the pretext of freedom of expression,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said, stated AFP report.