On March 7 and 8, 2007, the "cartoons" trial took place in Paris, with worldwide repercussions. A year earlier, the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo had decided to publish caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, accompanied by a call to fight radical Islam. The cover depicted the Prophet overwhelmed by fundamentalists, holding his head and exclaiming, "How difficult it is to be loved by stupid people!"

The weekly was taken to court by associations and institutions—including the Paris Mosque—who demanded the newspaper's censorship. At stake in those days were the right to mock ideas and religions, the right to caricature, the right to irreverence, and the right to salvific irony. The debates were bitter.

This book presents the arguments of Richard Malka and Georges Kiejman, superb eulogies of freedom of thought and defense of the right to laugh, not at people, but at their ideas. The reader is entrusted with the tender democratic tools to continue laughing, whether or not they believe in anything.

Years later, Charlie Hebdo would experience the tragedy of the January 7, 2015, attack with its procession of dead. This 2007 trial is historic and constitutes the original rehearsal for a drama that continues to repeat itself.