Paris gives Charlie Hebdo honorary cirtizenship to honor shooting victims

Paris on Friday made the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo an "honorary citizen" as part of support to the weekly which lost its main cartoonists in a deadly shooting on Wednesday.

In an extraordinary meeting of the city council, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said the status of "honorary citizen," rarely awarded, was given to "the most iconic defenders of human rights around the world to honor great resistance against dictatorship and barbarism."

"By choosing to grant it to Charlie Hebdo, Paris, our city, shows a heroic newspaper the respect due to heroes," she added.

On Wednesday, two masked and heavily armed men, Cherif and Said Kouachi, stormed offices of Charlie Hebdo, killing 10 journalists and two policemen. 11 others were wounded with four of them in critical conditions.

The dead included co-founder Jean "Cabu" Cabut and editor-in-chief Stephane Charbonnier (who publishes under the pen name Charb).

In November 2011, the magazine's headquarters was fire-bombed after it put an image of the Prophet Mohammad on its cover.

In its last published cartoons, it mocked Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State, which seized major towns in Iraq and Syria.

In a move to back freedom of press, French Culture Minister Fleur Pellerin said the government will grant the struggling newspaper 1 million euros (1.18 million U.S. dollars).

Next Wednesday, Charlie Hebdo, known for mocking politicians and religious leaders and printing sensitive cartoons, said to issue 1 million copies, versus an average of 30,000. Endit