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Le Monde
Le Monde
7 Jan 2025


Images Le Monde.fr
Alexandre Isard / Pasco&co

For 'Charlie Hebdo' director Riss, 10 years of keeping a spirit alive

By 
Published today at 12:00 pm (Paris)

8 min read Lire en français

In group photos taken before the massacre, Riss is easy to spot. He's the tall guy standing a little back, with a reserved, almost shy demeanor. When he smiles, it is as if he is holding back, even in the photos where the others are laughing and clowning around. But that was "before," in the days when Islamist terrorists had not yet descended on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, assault rifles in hand.

That morning, January 7, 2015, Laurent Sourisseau, aka "Riss," had the right reflex and a fair amount of luck: by throwing himself under a table, he escaped the gunfire that killed 12 people in a matter of minutes. He escaped with a serious shoulder wound, alive and determined to resurrect the satirical weekly, of which a first version had existed between 1970 and 1982, for a second time.

Now the publication's director, the 58-year-old cartoonist takes center stage in the photos, but the ghosts of his departed friends are never far away. "Often," he said in a recent interview, "at the moment of producing the magazine, I ask myself what they would have thought of one thing or the other." The smile is still discreet, but the man with a reputation for keeping silent can also be forthcoming, and even talkative when you meet him in a neutral place, as his bodyguards stand outside the door.

Like other survivors, but probably even more so than them, Riss has been living under protection since the attacks on his newspaper. "It's a strange life," he explained, "You have to be careful all the time." Sometimes, he said, "I'd prefer an electronic bracelet. In fact, I'm under more pressure than if I were under judicial supervision, even though I haven't done anything." In the weeks following the attacks, he insisted on this innocence in the face of those who accused the newspaper more or less openly of having gone too far. "It was as if we were responsible for our own misfortune," he recalled.

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