Hollande hails 'reborn' Charlie Hebdo as magazine sells out
French President Francois Hollande has declared Charlie Hebdo "reborn" after its new edition sold out in record time, as Al-Qaeda claimed the deadly attack on the satirical magazine.
"Charlie Hebdo is alive and will live on," the president said Wednesday, after many Parisians joined long queues to get their hands on a copy which, true to controversial form, featured a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on its cover.
"You can murder men and women, but you can never kill their ideas," Hollande said.
The president is due Thursday to address the Arab World Institute in Paris, a cultural institute that promotes closer ties between France and the Arab world, while funerals will be held for two of the magazine's slain cartoonists.
The January 7 attack by Islamist gunmen at Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices left 12 people dead, including some of the country's best-loved cartoonists.
Debate is growing, meanwhile, over where freedom of expression begins and ends.
Millions rallied in support of free speech after the assault, while French prosecutors, under government orders to crack down on hate crimes, have opened more than 50 cases for condoning terrorism or making threats to carry out terrorist acts since the attack.
They include one against controversial comedian Dieudonne, who was arrested Wednesday over a remark suggesting he sympathised with one of the Paris attackers.
A 21-year-old in Toulouse was also sent to prison for 10 months on Monday under France's ultra-fast-track court system, for expressing support for the jihadists while travelling on a tram.
In Wednesday's new edition of Charlie Hebdo, the prophet is depicted with a tear...
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