Philippe Val was the director of "Charlie Hebdo" in 2006. It was he who decided to publish the famous caricatures of Mohammed, as well as the cover design of his friend Cabu, on which we saw the prophet take his head between hands and exclaim: "It's hard to be loved by idiots."
At 68, he has been living under protection ever since.
And very regularly, he receives new death threats.
We met him at his home, a few days after the Conflans-Sainte-Honorine attack where Samuel Paty, this history and geography teacher, was beheaded in the middle of the street for showing drawings during his lesson on freedom of 'expression.
This interview was carried out before the attack on Thursday in Nice.
Philippe Val lives somewhere in Paris, at an “anonymized” address - his name does not appear anywhere -, in a place whose doors and windows, armored, can withstand Kalashnikov bullets.
In his living room, a grand piano, sheet music and a guitar recall his long career as a musician and singer.
On the table, a book on "Charlie Hebdo" and, on the kitchen fridge door, a photo of Cabu.
Further on, this handwritten letter from Emile Zola who asks the editor-in-chief of L'Aurore, in 1898, to send him letters from dissatisfied readers the day after the publication of "J'accuse".
We are at your place, it is time for lunch… Can we go out and go to the terrace of a cafe?
PHILIPPE VAL
No.
Or, it should have been planned yesterday, so that my security officers marked the exit and come with us.
Every evening, I have to give the schedule for the next day and say what I have planned and where I want to go, at what time… Improvisation is impossible.
I live at an "anonymized", monitored address.
All exits are armored, all windows and glass are Kalashnikov bulletproof ...
And in your house in the countryside?
It's pretty much the same.
A few months ago, when the threat escalated, I had 17 gendarmes there who took turns protecting me day and night, and three cars to get out.
It's a small village where everyone knows me, so in the morning, to go buy a baguette from the baker, three cars, it's not very discreet.
It's even very heavy ... I was placed in "Uclat 2"
(Editor's note: for the Counterterrorism Coordination Unit)
, like the ambassadors of the United States and Israel in France.
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You have a safety room at home.
What is that ?
Police officers from the Raid and the SDLP (National Police Protection Service) came to the house for an audit.
They told me I needed an armored room with a telephone and a walkie-talkie inside.
In the event of an attack, I am supposed to lock myself there with my family to wait for help without moving.
It is an impregnable, indestructible piece.
You would have to break down the walls to get in.
How do you live with these security officers around you, night and day?
They are wonderful.
Most of them are like family now.
And they are really good.
Are you not afraid with them?
In 2006, when the cartoons were published, I received a lot of threats.
My office was covered with mail: the police opened letters with gloves, they feared an anthrax attack.
But I was not afraid.
Now that I have a child, it's not the same.
It changed my view of the threat.
Without children, we forget ourselves, we get used to it.
Since he's been here, I admit I have redoubled my vigilance.
Did you talk to him about it?
With my wife, we said to ourselves that we should neither lie to her nor worry her.
So we explained to him that it was part of my job, that dad always worked with the police, that it was normal.
As a result, he is friends with all the officers, all the gendarmes.
They gave him dozens of badges, ranks… They are his idols!
My son could be a "general of the gendarmerie": he has a whole box of epaulettes, of medals from all regions, even of the services which defend diplomats.
He finds the situation trivial.
But now, almost 7 years old, he's starting to wonder what happened.
He sees photos of Cabu in the house, he went to the exhibition dedicated to him, he likes his drawings… We will have to tell him a little more, but without worrying him.
Are you armed?
(Long silence) Yes ...
In February 2006, director of “Charlie Hebdo”, Philippe Val decides to publish the cartoons of Mahomet and, in one, a drawing (on the right) of his friend Cabu./Jean-Francois Deroubaix / Gamma-Rapho / Getty
What does it feel like Charlie's old man to be armed?
I find it amazing that in France, in the 21st century, to do a writer's job, to report on reality, we need to come to that.
And what is amazing is that some of my friends, like so many people who are harmless people, with good intentions towards others, are living under protection today.
This is terrible.
It is a dark part of our democracy.
However, for all these years, it has taken some getting used to, to this life ...
Deal with it, yes, but I tell myself that you shouldn't get used to it, because it is scandalous.
Formerly, the censor was under the orders of the politico-religious power, he exerted a terror on the creators, the artists.
Today, it is exactly the opposite.
The State and the Republic protect us and allow us to express ourselves freely.
Because censorship now comes from below.
It spreads among the people and has taken as a model the Islamic terror, which exercises this censorship and is spreading.
Really, terror is spreading?
Of course, and Islamic terror becomes a model, it's crazy!
A model that is multiplied tenfold on social networks, which radicalized people of all kinds master perfectly.
This is very serious.
Our Republican Constitution did not provide for that.
With lawyer Richard Malka, we are campaigning, for example, so that the French leaders of social networks, like Twitter or Facebook, have the status of publication director, that is to say that they are invested with criminal responsibility, like all press directors in France.
That they have a responsibility vis-à-vis what is published?
Of course!
It is up to them to choose and moderate what they put online.
Look: in this tragedy of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, the young Chechen had published nearly 2000 tweets!
The sites must be responsible, and condemned if this is judged.
Today, on a social network, you can call for murder, say anything about anyone, destroy people, reputations.
However, in France, there are laws on defamation, but they are not respected on these networks!
Laws against racism, against anti-Semitism, which are not respected either.
Laws for the protection of privacy, the same… Why is nothing being done?
This is unacceptable.
I'm not against social media, I just want it to be legal.
Philippe Val: “A large part of the left has abandoned those who denounced this ideology of radical and fascist Islam.
»/ LP / Arnaud Journois
Do you think we've been lax for too long?
Not only that, but collaborators!
Over the past thirty years, we have not wanted to see a growing phenomenon.
When Ayatollah Khomeini took power in Iran in 1979 and politicized Islam, currents appeared in France, expressing an aggressive rejection of democracy and the miniskirt!
I was shocked to see intellectuals whom I respected legitimize this.
It must be said that, a few years before, already, Mao, after Stalin, had driven them mad.
We preferred to be wrong with Sartre, rather than right with Aron ...
There has always been a disease among our intellectuals.
This disease is betrayal, the abandonment of reality.
They lied and adhered to ideologies.
When, in the 1980s, we saw the development of a political Islam in France, certain intellectuals immediately justified it by evoking the very great fault of French society, this “guilty Republic” which had failed to integrate.
But they never asked themselves why France integrated ten years before, and more after!
Well, because some of the people concerned have voluntarily blocked the desire for success and integration into democratic society, accused of all evils and become a foil.
Does an event mark this?
Yes, the fatwa against the writer Salman Rushdie, in 1989. At the beginning, everyone was with him.
Then the anthill scattered and there was no one to support it.
We have seen an incredible discourse take hold.
And if the Socialist Party is wondering today why it only made 5% in the elections, when it was a government party, we must look no further.
It is because he abandoned what founds him: the principle of secularism, freedom of expression and universalism.
A large part of the left has abandoned those who denounced this ideology of radical and fascist Islam.
She called them reactions, racists… Terrorism and the extension of political Islam would have found a less favorable ecosystem without this approval.
You are angry with those who demonstrated last November against Islamophobia ...
Yes, it's a shame!
Environmental senator Esther Benbassa, for example, who demonstrated with a little girl who wore the yellow star!
That people like that are senators, I find that scandalous.
As a French citizen, I am hurt, I find it difficult to digest this, they do not deserve to be representatives of the people.
You know, in the village where I have my house, during the war, they saved as many Jews as there were inhabitants, it is a village of the Righteous.
Anti-Semitism is not a French passion.
There are racists in France, but France is not a racist country.
A majority of French people are repelled by anti-Semitism, just as they are repelled by racism.
The problem does not come from the French population, it is in radicalized Islam, in its terrorist and fascist drift.
After the most despicable attacks, the demonstrations were silent, dignified, peaceful.
The French people are democratically educated people.
You're angry ?
Yes, because it is all unbearable.
But I tell myself that at least things are clear now!
Someone like Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for example, has chosen his side.
If the terrorist had been Algerian and not Chechen, Mélenchon would never have advocated seeking the culpability of the Algerian community, not for reasons of indecency, but for electoral reasons.
The Chechens, who are said to be 18,000 in France, are not an electoral issue.
From now on, can we still be Mélenchon and Charlie?
No, the comedy is over… We even saw a blog on Mediapart which denounced police violence after the author of the beheading of Samuel Paty was shot dead.
You realize!
That said, we will perhaps finally open our eyes, consider that Edwy Plenel, the boss of Mediapart, is not the Christ on the Cross of journalism, but an ideologue who already approved the terrorist attacks of the Munich Olympics in 1972. , and the deaths of eleven Israeli athletes.
In January 2015, four days after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, then led by Philippe Val, thousands of people gathered at Place de la République, in Paris, in tribute to the victims, and to support freedom of expression. / William Alix / Sipa
You yourself have become an activist ...
Not really.
What unites activists is the detestation of what they are fighting against.
They sacrifice everything for a cause in the name of what they hate.
However, I need to defend what I love, and I fight only in the name of what I love.
It's a human oddity, moreover, that so many people fight against what they love in the name of what they hate, instead of fighting against what they hate in the name of what they love.
Have you never wanted to run away?
(Long silence) We mentioned it… because it was suggested to us.
But it's no.
No and no!
I know Salman Rushdie lives in New York and feels good there.
But imagine that I go there.
There is bound to be someone who will spot me and, with the Internet, there is no longer a white rabbit hole to hide.
Then I love Europe, deeply.
It is a region of rights.
And I love France, I love Paris passionately.
I don't want to leave, it's home.
There are the people I love, the streets I love, the noises I love… If I had to leave, I would leave my soul there.