Charlie Hebdo to print 1 million copies next week

Charlie Hebdo will go to print next week, in defiance of yesterday’s apparent militant Islamist attack.

Ten journalists at the French satirical magazine and two police officers were killed when masked attackers opened fire at its Paris headquarters.

Columnist Patrick Pelloux said the decision to continue to publish will show that “stupidity will not win”.

Charlie Hebdo will have a print run of one million copies, compared with its usual 60,000 a week.

It will be half its usual length at eight pages long.

“It’s very hard. We are all suffering, with grief, with fear, but we will do it anyway because stupidity will not win,” Patrick Pelloux told the AFP news agency.

The attack happened during the magazine’s daily editorial meeting when masked attackers opened fire with assault rifles before exchanging shots with police in the street outside and escaping by car.

It is believed to be the deadliest attack in France since 1961.

Magazine editor Stephane Charbonnier, 47, was among those killed, along with his police bodyguard.

Stephane Charbonnier, known as Chab to his friends, had received death threats in the past and was living under police protection.

The motive for Wednesday’s massacre is not yet clear, however Charlie Hebdo has courted controversy in the past with its irreverent take on news and current affairs.

The latest tweet on Charlie Hebdo‘s account was a cartoon of the Islamic State militant group leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Charlie Hebdo‘s offices were burned in an apparent arson attack in November 2011, a day after it named the Prophet Mohammed as its guest editor for the week’s issue.