Charlie Hebdo issue flies off shelves

Charlie Hebdo has made a defiant return with a new issue that sold out across France in record time, as al-Qaeda posted a video claiming last week's deadly attack on its cartoonists.

The satirical weekly once again featured the Prophet Mohammed on its cover - but with a tear in his eye, holding a "Je Suis Charlie" sign under the headline "All is forgiven".

After many Parisians joined long queues outside newspaper kiosks in the pre-dawn cold to get their hands on a copy, French President Francois Hollande said "Charlie Hebdo is alive and will live on".

"You can murder men and women but you can never kill their ideas," he said.

Around 700,000 copies were released and sold on Wednesday as part of a print run that will eventually total five million.

Al-Qaeda's Yemen branch, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, claimed responsibility for the attack by Islamist gunmen on the Paris offices of the weekly last Wednesday that left 12 people dead including some of the country's best-loved cartoonists.

"(AQAP) was the party that chose the target and plotted and financed the plan.... It was following orders by our general chief Ayman al-Zawahiri," said one of its leaders in the video, adding it was "vengeance" for the weekly's cartoons of the prophet.

Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi who carried out the attack are known to have trained with the group.

Amedy Coulibaly, who killed a policewoman and attacked a Jewish supermarket in Paris in attacks he said were co-ordinated with the Kouachi brothers, has claimed links to the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

IS on Wednesday described Charlie Hebdo's decision to print another Mohammed cartoon as "extremely stupid".

Under government orders to crackdown on hate crimes, French prosecutors have opened over 50 cases for condoning terrorism or making threats to carry out terrorist acts since the attacks that claimed 17 lives.

They include one against the controversial comedian Dieudonne Mbala Mbala.

He was arrested on Wednesday and will stand trial at a later date over a comment suggesting he sympathised with one of the Paris attackers, as France cracks down on those who condone terrorism.

The comedian wrote "I feel like Charlie Coulibaly" on Facebook - mixing the popular "Je Suis Charlie" homage to the slain journalists with a reference to the supermarket gunman.

Under France's ultra-fast-track court system, a 21-year-old in Toulouse was sent to prison for 10 months on Monday for expressing support for the jihadists while travelling on a tram.

Some global Muslim leaders have criticised the new cartoon, with the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars saying "it is neither reasonable, nor logical, nor wise to publish drawings and films ... attacking the prophet of Islam".

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Hussein said the cover was an insult that "has hurt the feelings of nearly two billion Muslims all over the world".

But many have taken a nuanced stance and tried to calm tensions, with French Muslim leaders urging their communities - which have already been targeted - to "stay calm and avoid emotive reactions".

Meanwhile, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Western "shortsightedness" and "support for terrorism" in the revolt against his rule were to blame for last week's attacks.

The three gunmen were known to French intelligence and on a US terror watch list "for years".

Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reported that Coulibaly bought all their weapons - including assault rifles and a rocket launcher - near the Gare du Midi station in Brussels for less than 5000 euros ($A7500).

France bade farewell to one of its most beloved cartoonists on Wednesday. Cabu, 76, one of the eight journalists killed at the magazine, was buried in the Champagne region.

Charlie Hebdo's surviving staff moved into the offices of the Liberation newspaper to compile the new issue, which they admitted had been an emotional experience.

Distributors quickly boosted the planned print run from an initial three million to five million after the sales rush on Wednesday - dwarfing its normal run of around 60,000 copies, and the edition will also be available in English, Spanish, Italian, Arabic and Turkish.

Proceeds will go to victims' families.