A cartoon published on Charlie Hebdo’s Instagram by artist Eric Salch provoked a wave of anger after it coincided with a national day of mourning in Switzerland following the deadly New Year’s Eve fire in Crans-Montana. The blaze killed 40 people, most of them teenagers, and injured more than 110. The image, which drew over 15,000 expressions of dismay online, showed two apparently burned skiers wrapped in bandages descending a slope, captioned in French: “Les brûlés font du ski — La comédie de l’année,” a play on the 1979 comedy film Les Bronzés font du ski.
The drawing drew immediate condemnation. Swiss lawmaker Benjamin Roduit of The Center party urged authorities to ban sales of Charlie Hebdo in Switzerland, calling the cartoon “vile and unacceptable” and saying it violated human dignity while young victims were still fighting for their lives. Authors Beatrice Riand and her husband Stephane, a lawyer, filed a criminal complaint arguing the cartoon breached Article 135 of the Swiss Criminal Code, which penalizes production and distribution of violent depictions that gravely violate human dignity. Riand told broadcaster RTS she found the image “deeply abhorrent” and argued that freedom of expression has limits when victims are being mocked.
An attorney representing some victims, Jean-Luc Addor, described the cartoon as “deeply shocking and in unimaginably poor taste,” but said he doubted the complaint would succeed and suggested the magazine’s readership should impose any sanction. Thousands of Instagram commenters voiced outrage; some wrote that freedom of expression did not justify the image and accused the magazine of lacking humanity, especially given the sympathy shown for Charlie Hebdo after the 2015 attack on its newsroom.
Charlie Hebdo’s editor-in-chief Gérard Biard defended the publication on RTS’s Forum program, saying satire is meant to shock and that the intention was to underline the absurdity of the tragedy rather than mock the victims. He acknowledged the artist had “gone pretty far,” adding that “dark humor does not have to be pleasant.”
The episode reignited a broader debate about the limits of satire. Supporters of an uncompromising satirical tradition point to press freedom and legal boundaries as the only clear constraints. French cartoonist Patrick Lamassoure, president of Cartooning for Peace, has said that while satire can upset anyone, the law is the agreed-upon limit.
Three days after the first image, Charlie Hebdo posted another Salch cartoon on Instagram satirizing Swiss outrage: a headline asked whether it is permissible to insult the Swiss, and the drawing depicted two angry crossbowmen — referencing a Swiss symbol — attacking members of the magazine’s staff, an image some saw as evoking memories of the 2015 massacre.
Switzerland had declared January 9 a national day of mourning after the Crans-Montana fire. The original article was written in German.