Charlie Hebdo cartoonist: Work after attack "too much to bear"

PARIS -- French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo is facing new problems, with a top cartoonist leaving because of the emotional burden after extremists killed his colleagues, and divisions over how to use donations from around the world.

Cartoonist Renald Luzier, who drew the newspaper's first cover after the Jan. 7 attack killed 12 people, said in an interview Tuesday in the daily Liberation that each issue is "torture, because the others are no longer there." He will leave in September.

"The time came when it was just all too much to bear. There was next to nobody to draw the cartoons... Every print-run was torture because the others are no longer there," said the cartoonist, who is known widely in France as Luz.

He also said he would no longer draw the Prophet Muhammad. Charlie Hebdo had been criticized for its prophet drawings, which became the excuse used by the two gunmen who plotted the attack in the name of -- and with the support of -- al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

Meanwhile, the long-struggling paper's editorial staff and management disagree over the 4.3 million euros in donations received since January. The editor and publisher said a special commission will determine how to use it.