Hollande pays tribute to police on Charlie Hebdo attacks anniversary
French President François Hollande gave his new year's message to the security forces on Thursday, the anniversary of the attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly. Relatives of two police officers killed during the attack were present as he laid a wreath to those killed in the line of duty at the Paris police headquarters.
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The ceremony was to show France's gratitude to the police killed defending the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists and those who tracked down the killers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi and Amédy Coulibaly, Hollande said.
He also hailed the police who have been stationed outside schools, places of worship and at airports and other public places.
Between 7-9 January last year 17 people killed in the Kouachis' attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, Coulibaly's shooting of police officer Clarissa Jean-Philippe and his hostage-taking at a Jewish supermarket.
On 13 January last year paid tribute to Franck Brinsolaro and Ahmed Merabet in front of the coffins, declaring that they had "died so that we can live free", a phrase he repeated during Thursday's ceremony.
Their families were present at Thursday's ceremony, while Jean-Philippe's was to attend the unveiling of a plaque at the scene of her death on Saturday.
Plaques to the Charlie Hebdo victims and Merabet were unveiled on Tuesday.
Hollande outlined changes to the law inspired by January's attacks and those in Paris in November.
They are to involve loosening restraints on police using weapons, body searches and searches of premises at night.
They will all need the authorisation of magistrates, Hollande said.
Nearly 200 people have been prevented from leaving France on suspicion that they aimed to fight with jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere over the last year and 25 activities relating to terrorism have been uncovered since the state of emergency was declared after the November attacks, Hollande said.
Charlie Hebdo itself marked the anniversary with a special edition that amused some and upset others.
The cover featured a bearded figure reminiscent of a biblical God with a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulder, with the headline “One year on, the assassin still on the loose.”
The publication’s editor, Riss, said the surviving staff members wanted to mark the anniversary with an attack on religion in general.
“For me, the problem is the belief in a divine entity who looks down on us from above and who is at the origin of everything," he told RFI. "It’s more of a philosophical problem than a problem of terrorism and that’s what I wanted this special issue to address. We’re in the country of Voltaire, where we have the right to live without God, and I want live without God.”
Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano said the cover was offensive to all religions and claimed the satirists’ uncompromising secularism was misguided.
A year after the attacks, Charlie Hebdo’s staff work in a high-security office and the paper is printed in a secret location.
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