At the end of April 2025, Charlie Hebdo and El Jueves, riding the President of Ukraine and the Pope, who died Pope, appeared on the Web. We checked whether these are real covers.
French magazine Charlie Hebdo
On April 23, the cover of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo began to spread on the network. It depicts the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, who pushes the wheelchair with the dead of the Roman Francis to the rack with the inscription "Bank of the Vatican". Zelensky moves his pope with his hand, like that puppet, and says: “It's me, dad Francis, transfer all my money to Ukraine.” This allegedly new cover Charlie Hebdo was reported, for example, Telegram channels "Solovyov"(237,000 views at the time of writing this analysis),"Russian economy"(122 000),"Bankst"(94,000) and"Release Kraken Z!"(53,000).
Pope Francis He died April 21 at the 89th year of life from a stroke. All week, world media dedicated their covers to him. Charlie Hebdo was no exception. Issue of the magazine with the cover about the pope appeared April 23 - the same date is indicated in the viral picture.
However, the real cover of the French edition is not at all like the one that Russian telegram channels are distributed. It depicts a rat in the papal Mitra and with a pastoral staff, over which it is written: "The next dad will be really closer to the poor." Zelensky is not on this caricature.
In the viral image, you can find some technical errors typical appearing Previously fake covers. Firstly, a continuous numbering is violated in the weekend. This issue number of April 23 - 1709, the viral picture is indicated No. 1710 (this issue appeared, respectively, a week, April 30, and was also Dedicated Not Zelensky, but to the leader of the French left Jean-Luku Melanshon).
In addition, the font in the viral image does not correspond to the original - this, for example, is noticeable, in numbers 2 and 0 in the weekend.
On the caricature with Zelensky and Pope Francis, the artist’s signature - Juin. Such an author really is in Charlie Hebdo, his name Pierrick Juen. But in Gallery There are no covers of his authorship on the website of the publication of such a caricature, he painted the last cover in December 2024, and in general his drawings were performed In a different style.
Finally, another characteristic detail: the plot with Zelensky and Pope Francis repeats Another fake coverappeared on the network in June 2023. Only then, in the role of a puppet, with the help of which Zelensky asks for money from the bank, the body of a billionaire Hamish Harding, who died during the collapse of the Titan Batigs, acted.
Since 2022, more than 70 has sorted out fake coverswho distributed the pro-Kremlin Telegram channels. About each third of them was a fake caricature from Charlie Hebdo.
The primary source of the fake cover Charlie Hebdo with Zelensky and Francis became the Telegram channel "Republic of Odessa"(2000 views), where the corresponding post appeared on April 23 at 11:35 Moscow time.
Spanish magazine El Jueves
On April 29, another caricature on the same topic appeared on the Web - this time supposedly from the cover of the satirical publication El Jueves. It depicts a pontiff lying in a coffin, which is slowed down by Zelensky and says: “You are an idiot! € 200,000 pasta factory?! You had to give them to Ukraine! " We are talking about the amount that Pope Francis shortly before his death bequeathed Macaron production plant at a prison for minors near Rome. The posts with this cover did not disperse as widely as in the previous case: they wrote about it, in particular, Telegram channels Lomovka (48,000) and "Countess with a changed face pond"(26,000).
The viral image states that this is No. 2.412, which was published in the 47th year of the existence of the publication (that is, in 2025). Under the number of the magazine there is an inscription "Special issue". On El Jueves in archive of covers In 2025, there is no such image, and the last affordable number (special release) was released at number 2.410 and is dedicated not to Ukraine, but by video games. Cover No. 2.411 at the time of writing the analysis has not yet appeared on the website of the publication, but there was Available In the social networks of the magazine.
In addition, the words of Zelensky in the caricature for some reason are written in English, which is not typical for the Spanish publication oriented on the Spanish-speaking readers.
In previous years, fake covers El Jueves appeared On the Web many times (“verified” ten of them). As a rule, fake authors depicted On the caricatures of Zelensky.
The earliest post with this caricature was found in the Telegram channel "Odessa Za Victory!". It was published on April 29 at 15:32 Moscow time.
As in the case of Charlie Hebdo, the Spanish magazine did not have such a cover, the release under such a number at the time of the appearance of the caricature in the Telegram channels did not go out, and the viral image with Zelensky and Pope-fake.
Photo on the cover: social networks
Read on the topic:
- Verified methods. In 2024, fake covers of satirical magazines rarely become viral, but Z-channels continue to publish them
- Is it true that foreign satirical magazines released these covers dedicated to the words of the Pope about Chechens and Buryats?
- Is it true that Pope Francis was offended by receiving a “satanic icon” as a gift from Zelensky?
If you find a spelling or grammatical error, please inform us of this, highlighting the text with an error and by pressing Ctrl+Enter.
