Charlie Hebdo: Black humour that hurt Italians is commonplace

PARIS – The editor of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo says the cartoons that offended a quake-hit Italian town are standard fare for the paper’s signature “black humour.”

Riss, also a cartoonist, said in a radio interview on Tuesday that the weekly isn’t concerned by a defamation complaint brought by Amatrice, where most of the 295 killed in the Aug. 24 earthquake lived.

The town is famous for its tomato sauce and one Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicted victims in layers of lasagna.

“For us, this is black humour like we’ve done before and nothing extraordinary,” Riss said on France Inter.

He said chatter about it, particularly on social media, is “completely disproportionate.”

“Death is a taboo. We must dare sometimes to transgress it a bit.”