Charlie Hebdo team bites back with new issue

More than a month after jihadist gunmen massacred much of the Charlie Hebdo editorial staff, the magazine is back at work with another savage swipe at its favorite enemies.

The cover of the latest issue due out Wednesday depicts the pope, a jihadist, former president Nicolas Sarkozy and far-right politician Marine Le Pen as a pack of enraged animals chasing after a dog with a copy of Charlie Hebdo clamped in its jaws.

“We’re back!” reads the headline.

The team has lain low since rushing out a “survivors’ issue” a week after the attack that killed 12 people, including five of France’s best-loved cartoonists, on January 7.

“We needed a break, a rest… There were those who needed to work again straight away, like me, and those who wanted to take more time,” says Gerard Biard, the paper’s new chief editor.

“So we reached a compromise, and agreed on February 25… to start off again on a weekly basis.”

— AFP