Satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo set to launch German edition
PARIS: There are no prizes for guessing whose face features on the poster for the first German edition of Charlie Hebdo which will appear on newsstands in Berlin and Vienna on Thursday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel will be pictured in a moment of quiet contemplation reading the satirical weekly in the toilet. “Charlie Hebdo, the newspaper that relaxes,” the legend reads.
The irreverent French phenomenon, which was the victim of a bloody jihadist attack in January 2015 hopes to con tinue its renaissance with a German version of its provocative mix of no-holds-barred cartoons and biting satirical columns.
Germans bought 70,000 copies of Charlie Hebdo’s “survivors’ edition”, which appeared one week after last year’s massacre in the magazine’s Paris offices, and its already sells 1,000 copies a week of its French edition there. Its editor the cartoonist Riss -- who was shot in the shoulder during the attack -has been working on a German language version for six months. He has also drawn the poster for the first issue with Merkel resplendent in pink reading a Charlie Hebdo, which wonders whether she would be able to govern both Germany and France at the same time.
The cover she is holding on her throne is one originally drawn by the weekly’s murdered former editor, Charb, who was gunned down in the attack in which 12 people died. “I always thought that we would be able to export Charlie
Hebdo ” Riss said