The Politics of Offence in Hara Kiri and Charlie Hebdo 1960-2015

This thesis looks at the French satirical magazines Charlie Hebdo and its predecessor Hara Kiri to evaluate the anti-religious discourse present in both titles throughout their histories, situating these closely interlinked publications within the broader context of French society and political debate since the 1960s. This helps bring into focus the growth of Islamophobia within France – much as in Europe more generally – over the last two decades, and Charlie Hebdo’s important role within this process. The printing of the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, both the firebombing of and the murderous attack on, Charlie Hebdo’s office, and the resulting global spread of the phrase ‘Je Suis Charlie’ pushed the magazine into a central role in debates about Islam, immigration, and laïcité (French secularism). Simultaneously Charlie became a symbol, employed in a manner that lacks deep understanding of its style and operation or a sense of its historical trajectory. This thesis fills a critical lacuna by providing a long, historicized view of the magazines, generating vital insight into their workings, significance, and reach.

The entire print runs of both titles are surveyed, as are the other available writings of those who contributed to the magazines. This allows the internal dynamics of the magazines and the aims and beliefs of the key editors and contributors to be brought into focus. Whilst the specific considerations necessary to examine satirical material are recognized, this approach allows Charlie Hebdo and Hari Kiri to be conceptualized as press media publications, matching many of the contributors’ self-defined image as journalists. Doing so helps identify the ideological component of the magazines and some of the complexities and contradictions of the activities of various contributors. It also allows for a more in-depth evaluation of Charlie Hebdo’s influence on French culture and mainstream political debates.

The thesis argues that although from the original launch of Hari Kari until the present there were some areas of continuity across both magazines as regards their recurrent attacks on religion, there was also a major point of divergence due to Charlie being closed in 1981 and later relaunched in 1992. In the first period – covered in Chapters 1 and 2 – the original founders of the magazines, François Cavanna and Georges Bernier, typically displayed an anarchic sensibility, which related to the spirit of May 1968. Religion, mainly in the form of the Catholic Church, was a common target of the magazines’ cartoons and editorials, though only one among many favoured topics. Consumerism was another common source of satire, and it is here that Hari Kiri and Charlie established their unique brand of bête et méchant humour. Often the true target of the ridicule was hard to discern, as racist and misogynistic imagery was deployed to supposedly mock those very same attitudes.

Both the style and approach of Charlie radically changed when the magazine was relaunched by Philippe Val, despite some resistance from Cavanna. As detailed in Chapter 3, Charlie changed from always attacking the establishment to often supporting it, especially as regards the idea of laïcité. The thesis examines Val and other contributors’ links to a certain section of the elite that championed French national identity and what they defined as Enlightenment values, which overlapped with Islamophobia. This persisted even after Val relinquished the editorship, and Chapter 4 tracks this dynamic, and Charlie’s response to and influence over public debates about Muslims, religion, and laïcité up until 2015.