As a Frenchman, I can say that Charlie Hebdo is a piece of trash, anything but funny, disrespectful and in very poor taste. Very few people actually read it and they survive on government subsisidies.
Furthermore, one of the few talented artists they still had, Siné, was sacked in 2008 when he published a picture of Nicolas Sarkozy's son Jean converting to Judaism, captioned "This kid will go far". Because it was "antisemtitic", you see. So there you have your "freedom of speech".