Charlie Hebdo magazine sued over fake covers mocking Ukraine

French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo has filed a complaint in a Paris court alleging that its covers, which mock Ukraine, and in particular President Volodymyr Zelensky, are fake.

This is reported on the magazineʼs website.

“ʼCover art’ that mimics the style of the publication and unceremoniously uses the signatures of its artists is appearing on the Internet. Who is behind this deception? We don’t know yet, so we have filed a complaint against an unidentified person. All of these clumsy fakes have one thing in common: they denigrate Ukraine, ridicule European support for President Volodymyr Zelensky, and sometimes spread rumors about the gender identity of [French First Lady] Brigitte Macron. You start to wonder if Putin himself ordered them,” the magazine said.

In the complaint, the magazine notes that over the past two years, at least 15 fake magazine covers with comments and captions in Russian have been published on Telegram and the social network X. According to the Charlie Hebdo editorial team, the covers are designed for a Russian audience to create the impression that Charlie Hebdo supports Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

"The authors of the hoax hope to make people think that Charlie Hebdo is a pro-Putin and anti-Zeleno newspaper. Propaganda is working at full capacity, and it would be a mistake to continue to underestimate its harmful influence," the publishers stressed.

So Charlie Hebdoʼs editorial board went to court to "dispel the doubts that these manipulations may raise in the public consciousness". The magazine said it hoped to find "at least the authors, and possibly the sponsors, of this propaganda".

• Charlie Hebdo is a French weekly magazine of political satire. It publishes cartoons, reports, discussions and jokes of a nonconformist nature. It ridicules politicians, the far-right, Islam and Christianity.

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