UNITY MARCH IN PARIS PARIS — Forty world leaders, including the Palestinian president and the Israeli prime minister, marched arm in arm in the vanguard of as many as a million people in Paris on Sunday in a somber display of solidarity and defiance after a shattering series of terrorist attacks. The march began shortly after 3 p.m. at the Place de la République, clogging the broad streets with a mass of humanity who turned out to share their grief and anger at last week’s attacks, which killed 17 people, including three police officers. Familes of the victims walked grim-faced, some wearing Charlie Hebdo headbands to commemorate the journalists murdered on Wednesday at a satirical newspaper that repeatedly lampooned the Prophet Muhammad and drew the rage of Islamic extremists. The French government mobilized hundreds of military forces, police and antiterrorism squads to provide security at the rally. Snipers looked down from rooftops, plainclothes officers mixed in with the crowd and security officers were seen checking sewers for explosives. Numerous subway stops and streets were closed because of the immense throng. At the Place de la République, demonstrators waved French flags and several climbed the imposing Statue of the Republic, a symbol of the French Revolution, and wielded an inflated pencil, symbolizing solidarity with the fallen cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo. People displayed flags from across Europe and many held signs saying, “I am Charlie.” Others held up caricatures from the magazine. The attacks have spread alarm among the Jewish community in France, which was already reeling from a spate of anti-Semitic attacks in the country, including on synagogues and Jewish shops at the time of an Israeli incursion in Gaza last year. On Sunday, President François Hollande, who has called the attack at a kosher supermarket on Friday that left four Jewish shoppers dead a horrific act of anti-Semitism, said he would meet with Jewish leaders at a rally after the main march. In a meeting earlier on Sunday with Roger Cukierman, president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France, Mr. Hollande said that the government would protect Jewish schools and synagogues with army troops if necessary, and that it was committed to the security of the country’s 500,000 Jews. Mr. Hollande was expected to go to the Great Synagogue of Paris, also known as the Synagogue de la Victoire, after the unity march to convey his support for the Jewish community. Prime Minister Manuel Valls declared on Saturday that France was at “war” with radical Islam after the harrowing attacks. Three gunmen who said they were acting on behalf of Al Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups were killed by the police on Friday in two separate raids. One gunman had taken hostages at a Jewish supermarket in Paris, and the two others had holed themselves up in a print shop in Dammartin-en-Goële, northeast of the French capital. “Indignation. Resistance. Solidarity. I am Charlie” read an invitation to the event that was circulating on social media. The organizers said the rally was to show support for freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and to reinforce the message that France and the French would not be cowed by terrorists. Officials from across Europe and elsewhere, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu of Turkey, were in Paris to attend the rally. In a rare display of unity, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel also participated. Security officials in France and across Europe remained on high alert for copycat attacks, even as a French prosecutor said that five people detained in the wake of the terrorist attacks had been released. Early on Sunday, a German newspaper that had reprinted cartoons from the French weekly Charlie Hebdo lampooning the Prophet Muhammad was the target of an apparent arson attack, the newspaper reported on its website. It said there were no injuries. (NYTIMES) static01.nyt/images/2015/01/11/world/europe/20140112-paris-slide-2YEA/20140112-paris-slide-2YEA-jumbo-v3.jpg
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 17:23:12 +0000
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