Paris ( CNN ) A picture of French journalists on the roof of Charlie Hebdo 's offices sounded the first alarm . They had taken shelter from three armed men who had just opened fire against their colleagues during the weekly satirical newspaper 's editorial committee . Events unfolded very rapidly from then on . French President François Hollande was very quick on the scene , the terrorist nature of the events was confirmed almost immediately and so was the shocking number of casualties : 12 dead and 11 injured , some critically . The operation appeared to have been prepared in a military style with weapons of war . What can cartoonists with their pen and paper do against killers with automatic weapons ? The news spread fast , sending tremors through France . Then the dead were given names , this is probably when the news really sank in . The cartoonists with the noms de plume Charb , Cabu , Wolinski and Tignous , known to millions in France , had been assassinated , at point blank range . Cabu and Wolinski , in particular , both in their late 70s , have accompanied generations of French people and made them laugh every week , in many different publications , on radio and on television , for over 50 years . I heard people unable to finish their sentences , forced to hang up the phone on learning the news -- too moved to speak . I saw shoppers stopping in their tracks , sinking lost onto benches , others in tears when learning the news from a friend 's call . As U.S. Secretary John Kerry later commented , both in French and English , from Washington : France gave democracy to the world and knows better than most the price of Liberty . The French have been shockingly reminded that Liberté , Egalité , Fraternité -- values they fought hard to see every day on the frontispiece of their schools and public buildings -- are threatened by terrorists . While their identities have not yet been confirmed , France , with the largest Muslim community in the Western world ( around 6 million out of a population of 66 million ) has always been a prime target for Islamist extremists . In 1995 , Paris reeled from a wave of terrorist attacks by the Algerian GIA , which killed a total of 12 people . In 1986 , the Hezbollah had carried another deadly attack , bombing the grand magasin Tati , and killing 8 passers-by . French secret services were notoriously good at preventing such plots and President Hollande today revealed that many planned attacks had been very recently foiled . There will be a lot of soul searching in the next weeks and months within the French and President Hollande is facing difficult questions and an enormous task . With the far right of Marine Le Pen blowing the flames of national divisions and blaming immigration for France 's many social and economic problems , and the left trying very hard not to stigmatize its Muslim citizens , there is little space left for a robust and calm public debate . The news that the French writer Michel Houellebecq , is now under police protection , as a result of today 's attack on Charlie Hebdo , means that the French Interior ministry takes no chances with terrorism , but it also shows the depth of the malaise at the heart of French society . Houellebecq 's latest novel takes place in 2022 during the presidential elections . After a second round between the far right and a French Islamist , the Islamists are rise to victory with the help of the liberal left -- and France is refounded as an Islamic State . Today , a French imam called the dead journalists and cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo `` martyrs of freedom . '' But France may have also discovered the price of its complacency and learned that such Fraternité should never be taken for granted . Charlie Hebdo : Satirical magazine is no stranger to controversy .
Gunmen attacked the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris Wednesday . The attack came after a series of deadly attacks on French targets over recent months that have left more than 130 people dead. Their deaths left people in tears and unable to speak , Poirier writes .