“Je suis Charlie” and the centrality of Freedom

« Je me rends compte que la liberté est un combat »
(Le Monde, 7 January 2015)

Je suis Charlie, “I am Charlie” or “I follow Charlie” or both: this simple phrase has made me think again and again. Liberty, liberty of expression, of association, of belief, of disbelief, of blasphemy and of the press, is a fundamental unalienable right in France.

In fact I wanted to begin the year by another post, but I changed my mind after the tragic events in Paris yesterday: where freedom of the press and of disbelief was the victim of an abject terrorist act. France was wounded in her centre. But I believe that the wound will heal and I work for France to be always as she is now, a lighthouse of liberties and of freedom.

The tragic events makes me think of liberty and of its centrality: without liberty nothing of all what we have here in France would exist: cogitation and intellectual production would be impossible, thus all the great culture would be, too, non-existant.

Je suis Charlie, yes, like all doctoral students and researchers who are all Charlie, and are jealous over liberty of expression as it is the foundation of science and the centre of every thought. France is a secular democratic Republic, where Marianne, the emblematic figure of the Country, protects every right to believe, to disbelieve and to criticise divinity.

And I am proud of this freedom.

Vive la France, et vive la Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité!

The support to CharlieHebdo at Place de la République, Paris, 7 January at 6:30 pm

You can read Le Monde’s article here.

You can also download the reactions, by comics, to the terrorist attack on CharlieHebdo.