World Leaders Gather in Paris for Massive Anti-Terror Unity March

World » EU | January 11, 2015, Sunday // 16:50
Bulgaria: World Leaders Gather in Paris for Massive Anti-Terror Unity March French President Francois Hollande (C), French Prime Minister Manuel Valls (L) and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo (2-R) leave the Elysee Palace with political guests to participate in a march to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris, 11 January 20

In an extraordinary demonstration of global unity, some 40 leaders from around the world have gathered together at the French presidential palace on Sunday to take part in the Paris Unity rally in the memory of the victims of this week’s jihadist attacks.

"Paris is the capital of the world today," French President Francois Hollande said a few minutes before welcoming the leaders. "The whole country will rise up."

The vast halls of Elysee Palace saw the arrival of rivals such as the Israeli Prime Minister  Benjamin Netanyahu  and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, as well as top representatives from Russia and Ukraine.

British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as well as Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, to name just a few, have been reported to be going to join the rally.

Hundreds of thousands of people have already gathered at the Place de la Republique, the starting point of the march. The slogan "Je suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie") in reference to the Charlie Hebdo magazine could be seen everywhere: on armbands, placards and T-shirts.

More than a million people are expected to march through the streets of Paris on Sunday afternoon. The rally is expected to be even bigger than the combined total turnout for marches across France on Saturday, when 700,000 people took to the streets to pay tribute to the victims of terrorist attacks.

The Defense Ministry said it has deployed 1,350 soldiers in the metropolitan area of Paris for the the rally. France’s interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 2,300 police officers, as well as paramilitary forces, would be deployed Sunday. 

Cherif and Said Kouachi, the two brothers accused of killing 12 people at the Paris office of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, were killed on Friday after a stand-off northeast of Paris.

On the same day, police ended a second hostage drama at a Jewish supermarket killing one armed man, Amedy Coulibaly, who was also a suspect in the fatal shooting of a female police officer in southern Paris on Thursday.

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Tags: France, Charlie Hebdo, Unity Rally, leaders. Hollande

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