Charlie Hebdo publishes three million copies of first issue since attack... with Muhammad on the cover

An ‘international’ edition of Charlie Hebdo showing prophet Muhammad on the front cover is their first since the slaughter.

17:22 13 January 2015

A week after terror attack that killed four of Charlie Hebdo’s best-known cartoonist as well as six other employees, the magazine is set to publish an international edition with Muhammad on the cover.

The defiantly controversial edition is expected to be contentiously blasphemous and is being viewed by some critics as a bite back at extremist Islam and its newfound friends. It will also mock many of the politicians around the world. 

The front page was revealed late Monday night by Liberation newspaper, which is temporarily housing Charlie Hebdo’s operations after the magazine’s Paris office was stormed by masked gunmen.

The grieving Charlie Hebdo will show the world its intention to remain scurrilous, anti-religious, leftist and offensive as ever.

The magazine will publish three million copies in 16 languages, including Arabic to take advantage of its sudden fame to repair its perennially disastrous finances.

The magazine’s lawyer and spokesman, Richard Malka, said yesterday: “We are not giving an inch. The spirit of ‘Je suis Charlie’ also implies a right to blaspheme.”