Paris —
After terrorists’ bullets tore through the staff of France’s satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo magazine 10 years ago, the people of France spoke with one voice: “Je suis Charlie.”
In the days since an assassin silenced the voice of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the words “I am Charlie” have echoed too across the United States. Both fell victim to political violence. And in death, their reputations for kindling outrage, whether publishing controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad or stoking viral arguments on college campuses – made defending freedom of speech a national priority.
“They were killed by the same bullet,” Nicolas Conquer, spokesperson for the American Republican Party in France told CNN.
“You can’t be Charlie yesterday and not be Charlie Kirk today,” he added.
But Gérard Biard, editor in chief of Charlie Hebdo magazine today, sees an “enormous confusion” on this point among Americans.
“Charlie Kirk was an influencer and above all a political personality,” he told CNN, “We do satire and cartoons.”
Both killings turned the victims – the staff of Charlie Hebdo and Charlie Kirk – into “martyrs for freedom of speech,” Anna Arzoumanov, an expert on freedom of expression from Paris’ Sorbonne Univers
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