In emotional interview, girlfriend of slain Charlie Hebdo editor says she will skip his funeral
'By doing that, they've killed him a second time,' Jeannette Bougrab says
The grief-stricken woman who claims she was the girlfriend of slain Charlie Hebdo editor Stéphane Charbonnier says she has agreed not to attend his funeral at the request of his family.
"I do not have the strength to fight for that," Jeannette Bougrab, a law professor and former French government minister, told Paris Match. "I am bruised and defeated."
Charbonnier was one of 12 people killed in last week's attack on the offices of the satirical French weekly. After the Jan. 7 massacre, Bougrab — who says she and Charbonnier had been together for three years — gave several interviews on French television mourning his loss.
"He never had children, because he knew he was going to die," she told French TV station BFMTV. "He lived without fear, but he knew he would die."
The slain editor's family subsequently released a statement formally denying "any committed relationship" between the two.
"We do not want her to express herself in the manner which she has done," says the family's statement, which was released by Charbonnier's brother, Laurent.
"The family [has] deprived me of a last reunion with my love," Bougrab stated in a response published by the Independent. "By doing that, they've killed him a second time."
In an interview with MSNBC broadcast Monday, the 41-year-old said she is heartbroken and wants to die.
"I want to die, and it's very difficult for me to explain this," she told Ronan Farrow. "I prefer to die and let Charb [be] alive."
Bougrab, who once refused to wear a veil while traveling to Pakistan and Yemen to interview senior Taliban leaders, says she cannot understand how Stéphane Charbonnier was a terrorist target and she was not.
"I'm alive, and he died in Paris, in the center of Paris," she said. "I don't understand."
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