French President Emmanuel Macron has paid tribute to the victims of a massacre at the offices of Charlie Hebdo three years ago. The killing spree in Paris was the first in a series of deadly Islamist assaults in France.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/C. Ena
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Emmanuel Macron laid a wreath outside the former premises of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Sunday during a low-key ceremony to mark the attack's third anniversary.
On January 7, 2015, two jihadi gunmen stormed the building and opened fire on the magazine's staff, killing 11 people, including several prominent cartoonists and writers.
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, members of her government and journalists from the magazine were in attendance as the names of the victims were read out.
Mourners also led tributes at a nearby site where a policeman was shot dead at point-blank range, as well as at a kosher supermarket where four other people were killed.
The Charlie Hebdo massacre was carried out by brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi, who were killed in a police shootout two days later.
A third attacker, Amedy Coulibaly, who staged the assault on the Jewish store, was also later slain by police.
The violence targeted at the staunchly provocative magazine shocked France and was the first in a series of jihadist attacks that have claimed dozens of lives in the country.
"The 7th of January 2015 propelled us into a new world of armed police, secure entrances and reinforced doors, of fear and death," Charlie Hebdo contributor Fabrice Nicolino wrote in the magazine's latest issue.
"And this in the heart of Paris and in conditions which do not honor the French republic. Do we still have a laugh? Yes," he added.
How artists have responded to terror
A sharp rise in deaths from terrorist attacks in developed countries in the past two years has unsettled the world. Artists have responded - with comfort and provocation.
Image: Reuters/R. Krause
First sign of peace
The day after the November 2015 Paris attacks, which left over 130 people dead, the city was in mourning. When German pianist Davide Martello began playing John Lennon's "Imagine" outside the Bataclan on a piano he had transported from Germany, a crowd quickly gathered. Martello later told The Guardian that "I wanted to be there to try and comfort, and offer a sign of hope."
Image: Getty Images/AFP/K. Tribouillard
When words fail
After the chaos of a tragedy, a simple visual image can be a comfort. French graphic artist Jean Jullien posted a hand-painted peace sign incorporating an image of the Eiffel Tower on social media after the November 2015 attack in Paris. It quickly became an iconic symbol of sympathy with survivors.
Image: Jean Jullien
The image as a weapon
Artists do not always play a peaceful role. The comic artist known as Charb was famous for publishing offensive caricatures of religions, including Islam. After Islamist gunmen shot him and his colleages to death in the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7, 2015, demonstrators used his images to defy the attackers and their supporters.
Image: Getty Images/E. Cabanis
Music from the ashes
Artists are sometimes the targets of terrorist groups. Such was the fate of Syrian pianist Aeham Ahmad, who studied music in Damascus and Homs but spent much of his life in a refugee settlement. It was on a bombed-out street there that Ahmad gained international attention, playing piano in a YouTube video. After ISIS militants burned his instrument, he fled to Germany and now lives there.
Image: DW/K. Danetzki
Catharsis, the therapy of theater
Aristotle's theory of catharsis - purging emotions through theater - lives on. Austrian Elfriede Jelinek crafted her play "Anger" (pictured above in a 2016 production at the Hamburger Thalia-Theater) while in shock from the 2015 attacks in Paris. The title points not only to the anger of the attackers, but also the hatefulness of some responses, as well as the agony of those caught in the middle.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/C. Fürst
"Not even scared"
On March 13, 2016, Al-Qaeda militants gunned down 19 people on the Ivory Coast's sandy Grand Bassam beach. Ten days later, a number of the country's pop stars released a music video to reclaim the space. "Meme pas peur" is the name of the song - "Not even scared" - and the defiant words ring true among performers as they dance on the sun-bleached sand, no blood in sight.
Image: DW/J.-P. Scholz
Just color and line
Not all artistic responses to violence are literal. The vivid colors and lively shapes of Guillaume Bottazzi's abstract art speak for themselves as a reponse to tragedy. Since the end of October, he has been working on a mural in Brussels's Place Jourdan as a permanent memorial to the victims of the March 22 attacks in the city.
Image: DW/M. Kübler
A wealthy donor
American pop artist Jeff Koons unveiled his plan for "Bouquet of Tulips 2016" at a ceremony in Paris in November. The forthcoming sculpture, by one of the world's wealthiest artists who hires workers to construct his designs, was donated in honor of the victims of the multiple Paris terrorist attacks of 2015.
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Euler
Together Berlin!
On December 20, a day after an attack on a Berlin Christmas market claimed 12 lives, the Brandenburg Gate was lit with the colors of the German flag. On Friday, December 23, the city will hold a six-hour long memorial concert featuring several German musicians as a sign of Berlin's resilience to the disruption of an otherwise festive public life in the week before Christmas.
