Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop with the famous cartoon at the temporary offices of Charlie Hebdo. Credit:Antoine Gyori Any of them could have drawn this, cartoonist and managing editor Riss said on Monday. "This is exactly how we felt and how we feel." The sketch, signed and framed, was presented to the staff of Charlie on Monday by foreign minister Julie Bishop, as a gesture of Australia's sympathy and support. Ms Bishop said it was a "love your work" gesture. "We see satire as an integral part of French society," Ms Bishop told the staff as she presented the cartoon. "Satire is controversial, it's provocative, it offends all religions, all political parties, nothing and no-one is spared. (It) is a counter-balance against power."

David Pope's cartoon on shootings at French newspaper Charlie Hebro. Ms Bishop said she admired the stoicism and courage of those who worked at the magazine, and those who had come to work there since the tragedy. The cartoon was a "expression of sympathy and admiration from the people of Australia", she said. Charlie has set up on a top floor in the offices of the newspaper Liberation (with a stunning view over the rooftops of Paris to Montmartre and the Eiffel Tower), while its old offices get a security upgrade including bullet-proofing. Machine gun toting police guard each end of the quiet street behind Place de la Republique, and anxious security insist on identifying and approving anyone who enters the building.

Upstairs, the Charlie Hebdo office is an organised mess of envelopes being stuffed, jars of pencils and pens strewn across tables, and editors, writers and cartoonists wracking their brains for last-minute inspiration ahead of the next edition. Gerard Biard, the editor-in-chief, told Fairfax it was a "long job" getting the magazine back on its feet after the attack. Twelve people died when gunmen attacked the Charlie Hebdo office in January, including leading cartoonists Jean "Cabu" Cabut and Stephane "Charb" Charbonnier. The attack was said to be retaliation for the magazine's caricatures of Muhammad and other Muslim figures. "It's a long way to find out again how to make this newspaper," Biard said. "We try to go on, I think we manage it, but it remains very difficult, most of all because we miss all the talents we lost, and it's very difficult to find a new cartoonist on the same level." He said it did help to know the magazine had global support, however he was wary of being idolised as a lone flag-waver for free speech. "We know that a lot of people support us, sincerely I don't doubt it. Not everyone but a lot of people are sincere.

"But the problem is that they want us to represent values, to be a symbol which belongs to everyone. It's not our job to be a symbol. Our job is to be a newspaper, to write, to comment, to draw. It's not to be the only representative of secularism, of freedom of speech, of freedom of expression, of freedom of conscience. "So I hope people will be conscious at the end of this particular challenge. It's not our challenge it's the whole world's challenge." Biard sighed and chuckled as he said there had been a lot of official visits like this one to the magazine's offices. Staff were also invited to speak at lots of events. "We can't do everything but we try to," he said. It was good advertising but "not only that" – also something they felt they should do. Riss, the director and managing editor of Charlie Hebdo, was shot through the shoulder during the attack and still has to visit hospital regularly for reconstructive surgery and rehabilitation.

"Having someone visit us from afar is a very good testimony of the fact that what happened to us has been heard and seen abroad," he said. The David Pope cartoon "is something we could have drawn, each and every one of us here because this is exactly how we felt and how we feel," he said. "It's been extremely difficult for all of us indeed but we had to carry on because it's all that we can do and all we love to do. This newspaper Charlie Hebdo is all our lives. "This support and the fact our readers are now waiting for the newspaper to be published is a good reason to carry on. But it's also now a bigger responsibility now that so much is on us." Ms Bishop said it was humbling to be among people who had been through such a horrific attack. She had come to Paris directly from a visit to Iran.

"The paradoxes of the globe at present – coming from Iran where there isn't the press freedom that there is in France gives us a significant contrast," she said. Charlie Hebdo was recently criticised by Pulitzer Prize-winning Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau who said the Parisian magazine's cartoons of Muslims were "attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons. Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech". He said free speech could "become its own kind of fanaticism". "Ridiculing the non-privileged is almost never funny – it's just mean." But Ms Bishop said she admired the people who worked at Charlie Hebdo. "Brutal, vicious satire is part of French society in a way that we don't see in Australia," she said. "It's an irreverent, provocative, controversial magazine that offends almost everyone.