Mark, maybe you don't understand the French culture as much as these perpetrators do. Charlie hebdo is not just a leftist irreverent magazine, a remnant of the 1968 anarchist culture which it also is. It uses a style of mockery and caricature that harkens right back to "gauloiseries" (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gauloiserie), something as deep to French culture as say the viking culture may be in Norway. Killing kids in a school is horrific but can be cast as the attack of a bunch of psychopaths, killing a feature of the national culture is much more scary in a nationalistic way because it declares "we are organized, rational, and we are out to kill your culture". This is a great article and Juan is spot on! This action will blow a lot of wind in French fascist sails like those of the Front National (which is already showing today (http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2015/01/08/pour-le-fn-la-guerre-est-ouverte-contre-l-islam-radical_4551642_823448.html).
Mark, maybe you don't understand the French culture as much as these perpetrators do. Charlie hebdo is not just a leftist irreverent magazine, a remnant of the 1968 anarchist culture which it also is. It uses a style of mockery and caricature that harkens right back to "gauloiseries" (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gauloiserie), something as deep to French culture as say the viking culture may be in Norway. Killing kids in a school is horrific but can be cast as the attack of a bunch of psychopaths, killing a feature of the national culture is much more scary in a nationalistic way because it declares "we are organized, rational, and we are out to kill your culture". This is a great article and Juan is spot on! This action will blow a lot of wind in French fascist sails like those of the Front National (which is already showing today (http://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2015/01/08/pour-le-fn-la-guerre-est-ouverte-contre-l-islam-radical_4551642_823448.html).