Olivier Muller-Cyran, better known under the name Olivier Cyran, is an independent German journalist, living in France.
He worked at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo from 1992 to 2001, when he left, angered by “the dictatorial behaviour and corrupt promotion practices” of a former editor Philippe Val. Having left he claimed the evolution of Charlie Hebdo evinced an increasing obsession with Islam[1]
'the distressing transformation which took over your team after the events of September 11, 2001. I was no longer part of Charlie Hebdo when the suicide planes made their impact on your editorial line, but the Islamophobic neurosis which bit by bit took over your pages from that day on affected me personally, as it ruined the memory of the good moments I spent on the magazine during the 1990s.'
in the 1990s - Cyrans view: 'There had, of course been some Francocentrism, as well as the editorials of Philippe Val. These latter were subject to a disturbing fixation, which worsened over the years, on the “Arabic-Muslimworld”. This was depicted as an ocean of barbarism threatening, at any moment, to submerge the little island of high culture and democratic refinement that was, for him, Israel. But the boss’s obsessions remained confined to his column on page 3,'
Caroline Fourest joined -
'The new impulse underway required the magazine to renounce the unruly attitude which had been its backbone up to then, and to form alliances with the most corrupt figures of the intellectual jet-set, such as Bernard-Henri Lévy or Antoine Sfeir, cosignatories in Charlie Hebdo of a grotesque “Manifesto of the Twelve against the New Islamic Totalitarianism'
Whoever could not see themselves in a worldview which opposed the civilized (Europeans) to obscurantists (Muslims) saw themselves quickly slapped with the label of “useful idiots” or “Islamo-leftists”.
Diplômé du Centre de formation des journalistes, Olivier Cyran collabore de 1991 à 2001 au journal Charlie Hebdo avant de se diriger vers d'autres projets comme la mise en place d'un nouveau journal mensuel, CQFD1, à partir de 2003.
Il se spécialise aussi petit à petit dans la critique des médias et la critique sociale, la dénonciation des violences policières2 et de la double peine3 en collaborant notamment avec Le Monde diplomatique ou Le Plan B. En 2005, il participe à la réalisation d'Almanach critique des médias4,5,6,7, ouvrage humoristique très critique à l'égard des médias de masse composé d'enquêtes, d'interviews et de décryptages.
En 2011, il fait partie des signataires d'un manifeste condamnant le soutien manifesté à Charlie Hebdo au lendemain d'un attentat au cocktail molotov ayant détruit les locaux du journal satirique8. Deux ans plus tard il décrit la ligne éditoriale adoptée depuis les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 par Charlie Hebdo comme une « machine à raffiner le racisme brut » effectuant un « pilonnage obsessionnel des musulmans »9,10.
Il collabore de 2013 à début 2015 au mensuel Article 11 dans lequel il signe des enquêtes critiques sur certains médias ou personnalités de gauche (dont Charb, Daniel Mermet11).