Events in my home country force me to come out of my usual retinue, and say loud and clear how I feel about those terrorist attacks.

I’m a writer. I’m not a caricaturist or a journalist, I simply write stories for children. You might want to say, how does this affect me and my work? Well it does.

First, because once a terrorist wants to stifle those who draw and tell stories through their writing, where does it end?

Those barbarians do not want a society with humour. I need humour to live.

I claim the right to put love, sadness, hope in my stories. I claim the right to have dragons, monsters, dancers in my stories. I claim the right to draw a map if the world I’m talking about requires it. I claim the right to be happy, joyful, fiercful and free in my stories. And nothing, except the love and respect of the children I write for will stop me from putting down into words what my imagination holds.

Those barbarians do not want kids, especially girls to learn to read, because when you can read, you can think, and it isn’t  easy to manipulate someone who thinks. They want to destroy that infinite part of the soul that should never be tamed, the right to dream.

And I believe with all my hearts, that as light hearted and gentle children stories may be, they are there to inform children of the world surrounding them, of the powers they’ve got within them, of the strength they can hold when together.

So yes, by attacking Charlie Hebdo, they’re attacking all the voices that tell stories. And I will fight this with all my heart, with all my soul.