Antoine Asnar says it's important that satire lives on.
The Frenchman is in Wanganui as part of a year-long working holiday in New Zealand, but his thoughts have been on his homeland since 12 people, including journalists, cartoonists and editor Stephane Charbonnier, were shot dead on Thursday.
They died in an attack by Islamic gunmen on the Paris offices of weekly satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo - an outrage that has brought worldwide condemnation.
Mr Ansar said yesterday that he had been talking to friends in France via Facebook since the attack, the worst on French soil in a generation.
"It's a very sad story for us ... we want to be in our country for this," he said.