The Charlie Hebdo Terrorist Attack and European Journalistic Solidarity (with Lea Hellmueller)

Abstract

This chapter explores how the censorious Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack sent shock waves through the different journalistic fields that exist in the politico-cultural geography of freedom of expression of Europe. It describes and explains how the transnational professional and collective bargaining institutions of the European journalistic field—the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the European Federation of journalists (EFJ), and French journalists’ unions, led by the Syndicat national des journalistes (National Union of Journalists), conceptualized the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks and managed the collective responses of the French and European journalistic fields to the catastrophic event. It focuses on transnational European journalistic solidarity, collective defense of the human right of freedom of expression, the right to caricature, the reaction of the German press to the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, and the firebombing of the Hamburger Morgenpost, which had republished Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoons in solidarity with its attacked French counterpart.