The first edition of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo since the massacre which left 12 people dead has been revealed.

It features a cartoon of a bearded man in a turban with a tear streaming down his cheek, and holding a sign: "Je Suis Charlie" - "I Am Charlie."

Above it is the phrase: "All is forgiven."

French media interpreted that as meaning Muhammad is forgiving the cartoonists for lampooning him.

Up to three million copies are believed to have been printed ahead of tomorrow's publication date - well up from its usual run of 60,000 - with reports of 1,000 copies being made available to British retailers.

Fundamentalist brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi were responsible for the attack on Charlie Hebdo's Paris offices last Wednesday, as staff held their editorial meeting for the forthcoming edition, which was believed to have an Islamic theme.

Cartoonists, journalists and police officers were among those gunned down by the brothers before they were shot dead by armed police following a stand-off at a printing works north of the capital on Friday afternoon.

Broadcasters and publishers were this morning faced with the decision whether or not to replicate tomorrow's controversial Charlie Hebdo cover.

The Guardian was among those to carry the front page on its website, while the Telegraph.co.uk cropped part of the design to remove the depiction of Islam's holiest prophet.

Plenty of others chose not to repeat the image.

In a blog post on the Associated Press (AP) website, the news agency said it had previously taken the decision not to run Charlie Hebdo cartoons mocking Islam.

It said: " AP tries hard not to be a conveyor belt for images and actions aimed at mocking or provoking people on the basis of religion, race or sexual orientation. We did not run the Danish cartoons mocking Muhammad in 2005, or the Charlie Hebdo cartoons of the same type.

"While we run many photos that are politically or socially provocative, there are areas verging on hate speech and actions where we feel it is right to be cautious.

"This policy is consistent with our approach to sound bites and text reporting, where we avoid racist, religious and sexual slurs."

Reuters carried the picture.

London Mayor Boris Johnson said Charlie Hebdo had "no choice" but to print the cover it had, following the unity marches in France and defences of press freedoms in the wake of the attacks.

He told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme: "You cannot have a march through the streets of Paris attended by 46 world leaders, four million people, climaxing with a shout of 'We are not afraid' and then not print the central object of contention.

"Of course they are right to do that and I am afraid it is absolutely vital now that everybody stands up and defends their right to publish.

"You may not agree with what they have done, you may be offended by what they have done, but you should defend their right to publish it."

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