After a week of deadly, international protests against an anti-Islam film, a French satirical magazine is fueling the debate between freedom of expression and offensive provocation.

The magazine Charlie Hebdo published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the Prophet Mohammed in an issue that hit newsstands Wednesday.

Magazine director Stephane Charbonnier said his staff is "not really fueling the fire," but rather using its freedom of expression "to comment (on) the news in a satirical way."

"It happens that the news this week is Mohammed and this lousy film, so we are drawing cartoons about this subject," Charbonnier told CNN affiliate BFM-TV on Wednesday. "It's more turning in derision this grotesque film than to make fun of Mohammed."

The "lousy film" he's referring to is "Innocence of Muslims," an amateurish, 14-minute video that mocks the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer, child molester and killer. The video drew international attention last week and spawned heated protests

Any depiction of Islam's prophet is considered blasphemy by many Muslims.

Charlie Hebdo journalist Laurent Leger said the magazine's cartoons show Muslim men and Muslim extremists, but the magazine does not explicitly state that the cartoons are depictions of the Prophet Mohammed.

Rather, he said, the cartoons are open to interpretation.

"The aim is to laugh. We want to laugh at the extremists -- every extremist. They can be Muslim, Jewish, Catholic. Everyone can be religious, but extremist thoughts and acts we cannot accept," Leger said.

"In France, we always have the right to write and draw. And if some people are not happy with this, they can sue us and we can defend ourselves. That's democracy. You don't throw bombs, you discuss, you debate. But you don't act violently. We have to stand and resist pressure from extremism."

The cartoons are already drawing strong condemnation by the French Muslim community.

Mohammed Moussaoui, president of the French Council of Muslim Faith, described a feeling of "indignation against this new Islamophobic act" to BFM-TV.

He said the cartoons are "insulting for the prophet of Islam," and described their publication as a "new provocation."

French authorities have already taken precautionary measures, with police vehicles parked outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo late Tuesday.

The offices were the scene of an attack last November, when they were burned on the day the magazine was due to publish an issue with a cover appearing to make fun of Islamic law.

The cover featured a bearded and turbaned cartoon figure of the Prophet Mohammed saying, "100 lashes if you're not dying of laughter."