On average, cartoons on the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo’s Instagram get a few hundred reactions, but a recent drawing by cartoonist Eric Salch drew more than 15,000 expressions of dismay online.
It was published as Switzerland observed a national day of mourning for the deadly New Year’s Eve fire at a bar in Crans-Montana that killed 40 people, most of them teenagers, and injured more than 110, some seriously. The cartoon shows two apparently charred skiers wrapped in bandages skiing downhill in Crans-Montana. Its caption reads, in French, “Les brûlés font du ski — La comédie de l’année” (“The burned go skiing — The comedy of the year”), a play on the title of the 1979 French comedy film Les Bronzés font du ski.
The image prompted swift controversy. Swiss lawmaker Benjamin Roduit of The Center party called for a ban on Charlie Hebdo sales in Switzerland, saying on nau.ch, “At a time when young victims are fighting for their lives, this is vile and unacceptable. It violates human dignity. The words fail me to describe that image.”
Swiss author Beatrice Riand and her husband Stephane, a lawyer, filed a criminal complaint arguing that Salch and the magazine breached Article 135 of the Swiss Criminal Code, which penalizes production and distribution of violent depictions that grievously violate human dignity. Riand told broadcaster RTS, “I find this deeply abhorrent. Freedom of expression has limits. They’re mocking the victims. The question is: Does human dignity take precedence over freedom of expression, or not?”
An attorney for some victims, Jean-Luc Addor, called the cartoon “deeply shocking and in unimaginably poor taste,” but told nau.ch he doubted the complaint would succeed and said, “The readers of the magazine should be imposing the sanction.”
Thousands of commenters voiced outrage on Instagram. One wrote, “Freedom of expression justifies nothing. Shame on you for what you’ve done; you’re pathetic.” Another wrote that when France mourned after the 2015 attack on Charlie Hebdo people cried with the magazine’s bereaved, yet “when others mourn their children, you turn it into a joke. It’s disgraceful! Where’s your humanity?” That attack in 2015, in which Islamist gunmen killed 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo newsroom, prompted broad solidarity across Europe.
Charlie Hebdo has again drawn attention through provocation. Editor-in-chief Gérard Biard defended the cartoon on RTS’s Forum program: “Of course it can be shocking, but satire is meant to shock.” He said the magazine was not mocking the victims but highlighting the absurdity of the tragedy, adding that the artist had “gone pretty far” while noting that “dark humor does not have to be pleasant.”
The controversy raises a wider question about limits to satire. Merriam-Webster defines satire as “wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly,” and more broadly as humor that criticizes weakness or wrongdoing. Supporters of an uncompromising satirical approach point to Charlie Hebdo’s long tradition of provocative, taboo-breaking imagery, protected within legal bounds for press freedom and expression. French cartoonist Patrick Lamassoure, president of Cartooning for Peace, told DW on the 10th anniversary of the 2015 attacks, “Anything I say or do can upset someone — anything. The only thing that can set a limit is the law, since we’ve all agreed to it.”
Three days after the first drawing, Charlie Hebdo published another Salch cartoon on Instagram mocking Switzerland’s outrage. The headline asked, “Is it permissible to insult the Swiss?” and the image showed two enraged crossbowmen — the crossbow being a symbol associated with Switzerland — killing members of the satirical weekly’s editorial staff, evoking memories of the 2015 attacks.
Following the Crans-Montana fire, January 9 was declared a national day of mourning in Switzerland.
This article was originally written in German.