“Every man being presumed innocent”

We spend a morning at the Charlie Hebdo trial; Michelle reads Didier Fassin on a day of criminal court in Paris; and Albert reads E.P. Thompson and lets the sources talk.

Our colleague Sharon Weill, an expert in international law, has been closely following terrorism trials in France for the past couple of years. Since September, she’s taken her students to watch the proceedings of the Charlie Hebdo trial, and at her invitation we joined them on Wednesday morning. 

Some background: in January 2015, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi stormed the offices of the satirical weekly magazine Charlie Hebdo and killed twelve people before escaping. A massive manhunt ensued; the brothers were killed two days later. Their close friend Amedy Coulibaly shot and killed a police officer and later took hostages in a Kosher supermarket, killing four people before he died himself. The attackers, radicalized by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, purportedly wanted to punish Charlie Hebdo for publishing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. In the wake of the attacks, millions of people in Paris and around the world marched in the streets, holding JE SUIS CHARLIE signs.

Sharon pointed out…