Where can I access the Charlie Hebdo special issue that contains 'Rokhaya Diallo, la petite fiancée de l’Amérique'?
Executive summary
Charlie Hebdo published an article titled « Rokhaya Diallo, la petite fiancée de l’Amérique » inside a hors‑série (special issue) presented as one on “les fossoyeurs de la laïcité,” and the accompanying caricature by Riss sparked a public dispute with Rokhaya Diallo who called it racist [1] [2] [3]. The reporting collected here confirms the existence and title of that hors‑série but does not specify a definitive retail or online location where readers can currently obtain that back issue. Multiple outlets therefore report the publication and the controversy but not the current points of sale or digital access [4] [5].
1. What was published and where it appeared
French outlets uniformly report that the piece “Rokhaya Diallo, la petite fiancée de l’Amérique” ran in a Charlie Hebdo hors‑série devoted to critiquing what the magazine called “les fossoyeurs de la laïcité,” and that the cartoon in question is signed by Charlie Hebdo’s director Riss [1] [2] [3]. Coverage in Le Monde, France Info, Libération and others repeats the same basic bibliographic fact: an article with that headline is part of a special issue rather than the standard weekly edition [1] [2] [4].
2. The controversy that draws attention to the issue
The immediate reason the hors‑série is in the news is the caricature that accompanied the article: Rokhaya Diallo publicly denounced a drawing showing her in a banana belt evoking Joséphine Baker and called it racist and aligned with “l’imagerie coloniale,” while Charlie Hebdo defended the image as an illustration of a political critique and denied intent of racism [1] [2] [5]. Commentators and guest writers have amplified the dispute — for example, Diallo published a piece in The Guardian framing the cartoon as degrading and symptomatic of the magazine’s failures — which has driven wider attention to that specific hors‑série [6].
3. What the reporting does not establish about access
None of the assembled reports provide a direct link, catalogue number, or explicit distribution note telling readers where to buy or legally download that exact hors‑série; they focus on the content and the dispute rather than retail details [1] [4] [5]. Because primary sources here name the special issue but stop short of listing current sales channels, any definitive claim about a single place to access the back issue would go beyond what the cited reporting supplies [3] [7].
4. Practical next steps to locate the issue (recommended, not documented in reporting)
Given the confirmed existence of a Charlie Hebdo hors‑série containing the piece [1] [2], reasonable next steps are to check Charlie Hebdo’s own outlets (official website and social accounts where they publicize issues), standard French press distribution points and specialized back‑issue sellers, or library and archive catalogues that collect periodicals; if online search or retail listings fail, contacting the magazine’s publisher directly is a logical follow‑up. The assembled coverage supports the fact of the hors‑série and its headline but does not confirm which of those practical channels currently holds the item, so these steps are procedural recommendations rather than sourced facts [1] [5].
5. Context, competing narratives and who benefits from the focus on access
The reporting frames the item as newsworthy precisely because the cartoon escalated a broader debate about secularism, race and satirical boundaries in France; Charlie Hebdo stresses a political reading of the piece while Diallo and several critics read it as colonial stereotype and humiliation [1] [3] [6]. That framing has the dual effect of making readers seek the original hors‑série to judge context for themselves and of prompting media outlets to reproduce or describe the contentious image rather than supply clear purchase information — an editorial incentive that shapes coverage [4] [8].