Full text in English of Charlie hebdo article “ Rokhaya Diallo, la petite fiancée de l’Amérique”

1. What Charlie Hebdo published and how it presented Diallo

Charlie Hebdo ran a feature in a special issue billed as targeting what it calls “the gravediggers of laïcité,” and the piece about Rokhaya Diallo carried the headline rendered in French as “Rokhaya Diallo, la petite fiancée de l’Amérique,” a framing which the paper and its director defended as a critique of Diallo’s positions regarding French secularism and alleged preference for American-style communitarian culture ^{[1] [5] [6]}.

2. The caricature at the center of the row

The special issue included a caricature by Charlie Hebdo’s director Riss that depicts Diallo in imagery recalling Joséphine Baker—complete with a banana belt and an exaggerated dancing posture—an image that multiple outlets report accompanies the article and that provoked Diallo’s immediate denunciation as racist and colonialist imagery ^{[7] [8] [9]}.

3. Diallo’s denunciation and the racialized reading

Rokhaya Diallo publicly condemned the drawing as “hideous,” arguing on social media that it was designed to “remind [her] of [her] place in the racial and sexist hierarchy” and that invoking Baker’s banana costume reproduced colonial stereotypes that exoticize and infantilize Black women; several outlets quoted her formulation that the image is “in the right line of colonial imagery” ^{[3] [10] [5]}.

4. Charlie Hebdo’s defense and the journalistic intent claim

Charlie Hebdo replied on social platforms that the drawing illustrated a political critique—specifically Diallo’s purported opposition to the 1905 law on laïcité and her alleged embrace of American communitarian models—and called Diallo’s reading a “manipulation” inconsistent with the publication’s intent, a defense carried and summarized by numerous press reports ^{[1] [2] [6]}.

5. Context: a long-running ideological clash

Reporting consistently situates this incident within a recurring ideological confrontation between Diallo, a journalist and anti‑colonial/anti‑racist activist, and the satirical weekly over universalism, laïcité, and republican secular norms; outlets note the dispute is not new and that the caricature reignited those broader debates on the French left ^{[1] [7] [11]}.

6. Public and political reactions reported

Coverage records that Diallo received vocal support from some left-wing elected officials and anti‑racist voices who condemned the caricature as emblematic of enduring structural stereotyping, while Charlie Hebdo’s defenders stress the paper’s tradition of satirical provocation and political critique—an opposition of values that media reports highlight as shaping the immediate public reaction ^{[9] [5] [4]}.

7. What is verifiable and what remains unavailable

Multiple mainstream French outlets have described the article’s headline, the accompanying caricature by Riss, Diallo’s denunciation, and Charlie Hebdo’s defense; those factual elements are documented in the reporting cited here ^{[1] [2] [3]}. What cannot be reproduced in full in this response is the complete English-language text of Charlie Hebdo’s original article: the sources provided summarize and quote reactions but do not publish the full article for redistribution, and therefore the full text cannot be lawfully relayed here.

8. How to read this dispute and next steps for readers

Readers should weigh three strands reported across outlets: the paper’s stated editorial target (criticizing Diallo’s stance on laïcité), the historical resonance of Baker’s image in colonial stereotypes cited by critics, and Charlie Hebdo’s institutional self‑defense rooted in its satirical mission; consulting the original special issue directly or authoritative translations from licensed distributors is necessary for anyone seeking the primary text, while the cited press accounts remain reliable for the documented controversy ^{[7] [8] [6]}.