France Grimly Marks 5 Years Since Charlie Hebdo Attack

France on Tuesday commemorated the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attack on the office of the satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, that killed nine of its editorial staff, a guard, a visitor to the building and a patrol officer in the street outside.

The killers were a pair of French brothers, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, supporters of al-Qaida who claimed the attack was revenge for caricatures of the founder of Islam.

Two days later, an accomplice who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group seized hostages inside a kosher supermarket. In all, 17 people died before near-simultaneous police raids killed the three gunmen. The trial of a network of people accused in the plot begins this May.

Riss, the editor, who goes by his pen name, was wounded in the attack and lives to this day under constant police protection.

“I’m here. We’re here. Charlie Hebdo is still here. Still standing and just as determined,” he told France Info radio on Tuesday ahead of a somber memorial service at the site of the first attack.

Charlie Hebdo’s latest issue is dedicated to freedom of expression, five years after the death of most of its editorial staff.