Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical weekly which suffered a devastating attack from Islamist extremists a year ago, is to mark the event with a defiant anniversary edition.

The cover of the paper to be released on Wednesday shows a bearded man representing God with blood on his hands and a Kalashnikov automatic rifle strapped to his back. "One year later, the assassin is still on the run," the headline says.

In a pre-publication editorial comment the magazine says that it will continue despite the religious extremists who tried to close it down. "They won't be the ones to see Charlie die - Charlie will see them kick the bucket," it declared.

Twelve people died at Charlie Hebdo's offices on January 7 last year at the hands brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi. The attack was claimed by al-Qaida's branch in the Arabian Peninsula.

The office had previously been firebombed and its staff had been under police protection since it published cartoons of the prophet Muhammad in 2006.

An editorial by cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau – who was wounded in the attack – included a defence of secularism, denouncing "fanatics brutalised by the Koran".

After the Charlie Hebdo attack another militant murdered a policewoman the next day, took hostages at the HyperCacher supermarket on January 9 and killed four of them before police shot him dead.

Other police cornered the escaped Charlie Hebdo gunmen in a printing plant north of Paris and killed them on the same afternoon.

On Tuesday, President Francois Hollande is due to attend low-key ceremonies unveiling commemorative plaques at the main sites of the January attacks that will be attended by families and government officials. He will unveil another plaque in memory of the murdered policewoman on Saturday.

On Sunday, a more public ceremony is planned at Place de la Republique, the square in eastern Paris that attracted mass rallies in favour of free speech and democratic values after the attacks and became an informal memorial.

Hollande will preside over the ceremony, during which a 10-metre-high commemorative oak tree will be planted.

Johnny Hallyday, the 72-year-old French rock giant, will perform his song A Sunday in January about several million people who marched in protest on the streets of French cities following the attacks.

Hollande is also scheduled to address members of the security forces on Thursday as part of his traditional New Year's greetings to various groups of French society.

Additional reporting by Reuters.