Charlie Hebdo moves into new high-security offices

Paris, Sep 30: Nine months after the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in which some of France's most celebrated cartoonists were massacred, the satirical magazine began moving into new high-security offices in southern Paris, sources said.

The remaining members of the editorial team have left their temporary home at the Paris offices of the French daily Liberation, which took in the survivors of the jihadi gun attack at Charlie Hebdo in January.

Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who gunned down 12 people at Charlie Hebdo's offices, killed a total of 17 people during three days of attacks in and around the French capital. The killings shocked the world and brought millions onto the streets across France in support of Charlie Hebdo, a small struggling magazine whose circulation has since soared to more than 300,000.

"They left (Liberation) today. The move was spread over several days," a source told AFP, although the management of the magazine did not wish to officially comment on the move.

Despite the groundswell of public support for the magazine, Charlie Hebdo has suffered a series of blows of late, with its leading cartoonist Luz announcing he is to leave, and columnist Patrick Pelloux saying last weekend that he would follow him.

Both cited the traumatic effects of the attack, and said that it was "not the same" without their murdered colleagues. "I don't have strength any more to continue every week," said Pelloux, an emergency room doctor who had built up a cult, following for his despatches from the frontline of French healthcare.

The magazine has also been riven by other internal tensions over a new management team and an internal shake-up in July that included changes to its look and design.

AFP