Threats force 'Charlie Hebdo' executive to flee her home

Threats coincide with trial of 14 suspected accomplices of killers behind attacks on the French magazine's offices and a Jewish supermarket

'Charlie Hebdo' HR chief Marika Bret, centre, arrives at the Paris court where suspected accomplices of the two men who attacked the magazine's office are being tried. AFP

Police moved the head of human resources at French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo from her home after she received death threats last week, she told a French magazine.

Marika Bret, who has been under police protection for nearly five years after the deadly assault on Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, said the threats were "sufficiently concrete to be taken seriously".

Ms Bret said she would not return.

"I had 10 minutes to gather my things and leave my home," she told weekly news magazine Le Point on Monday.

"Ten minutes to leave behind a part of my life. That's a bit short, that's very brutal."

The threats coincide with the trial of 14 suspected accomplices of the perpetrators of attacks at Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket, when 17 people were killed.

Twelve people, including some of France's most celebrated cartoonists, were killed on January 7, 2015, when brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi went on a shooting rampage at the offices of the magazine after it published cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed.

There is "a crazy amount of hatred surrounding Charlie Hebdo", Ms Bret said.

She said leaving her home "translates the unprecedented level of tension that we are having to deal with".

Since the start of the trial, which prompted Charlie Hebdo to republish controversial cartoons, "we have received all kinds of horrible messages, notably threats from Al Qaeda, and calls to finish the job started by the Kouachi brothers", she said.

Al Qaeda this month threatened Charlie Hebdo staff with a repeat of the attack.