44 Muslim, Christian, Jewish world leaders join Paris million march

PARIS: As many as 1.5 million people flooded Paris for a march against extremism on Sunday, one of the organisers said.

“Fantastic France! I am told we will be between 1.3 and 1.5 million in Paris,” said former minister Francois Lamy on his Twitter account.

Nearly 10,000 people took to the streets of the small French town of Dammartin-en-Goele on Sunday where the manhunt for the two brothers who massacred 12 people at a satirical magazine came to a bloody end.

It was not just Paris — where a huge march was started — but towns and cities all over the country that came out in support of free speech and to mark their sorrow at this week’s attacks in the capital.

In the tiny town of Saint-Etienne in the southeast, some 60,000 people — more than a third of the entire population — joined a march from the railway station to the town hall.There were similar scenes everywhere from Perpignan in the Pyrenees of southern France to Blois in the Loire valley.

Dammartin-en-Goele, around 40 kilometres from Paris, is where Cherif and Said Kouachi were killed by elite police forces after holing up in a small printing firm on Friday.The demonstrators there on Sunday outnumbered the population of the town, which is only around 8,000.

Dozens of world leaders including Muslim and Jewish statesmen linked arms leading hundreds of thousands of French citizens in an unprecedented march under high security to pay tributes to victims of militant attacks. President Francois Hollande and leaders from Germany, Italy, Israel, Turkey, Britain and the Palestinian territories among others, moved off from the central Place de la Republique ahead of a sea of French and other flags. Giant letters attached to a statue in the square spelt out the word Pourquoi?” (Why?) and small groups sang the “La Marseillaise” national anthem. Some 2,200 police and soldiers patrolled Paris streets to protect the marchers from would-be attackers, with police snipers on rooftops and plain-clothes detectives mingling with the crowd.

“Paris is today the capital of the world. Our entire country will rise up and show its best side,” said Hollande in a statement.

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italy Prime Minister Matteo Renzi were among 44 foreign leaders marching with Hollande. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu — who earlier encouraged French Jews to immigrate to Israel — and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were also present.

List of leaders to attend the Paris rally on Sunday:

Albania Prime Minister Edi Rama, Algeria Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra, Austria Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, Belgium Prime Minister Charles Michel, Benin President Thomas Boni Yayi, Britain Prime Minister David Cameron, Bulgaria Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, Canada Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney, Croatia Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic, Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka, Denmark Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba, Georgia Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel, Greece Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, Hungary Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Italy Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, Jordan King Abdullah II and Queen Rania, Latvia Prime Minister Laimdota Straujuma’ Mali President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, Palestinian territories President Mahmud Abbas, Portugal Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho, Romania President Klaus Iohannis, Russia Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Spain Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Switzerland President Simonetta Sommaruga, The Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte, Tunisia Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa, Turkey Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed al-Nahayan, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko, United States Attorney General Eric Holder, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, European Parliament President Martin Schulz, European Union President Donald Tusk, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of people joined rallies in cities across Europe on Sunday, singing the Marseillaise and holding up pens in solidarity with France after terror attacks left 17 people dead.

Some 20,000 people marched through the Belgian capital Brussels, holding banners saying, “United against hate” and “Freedom of speech”.

In Berlin, 9,000 joined the march while in Madrid’s Plaza de Sol, hundreds descended on the streets with red, white and blue French flags, and singing the French national anthem.At the Madrid protest, French student Louis Eimery, 21, said: “We are here to say that we are not afraid.”

Many of the demonstrators joined a separate rally held by hundreds of Muslims at Madrid’s Atocha station, the scene of the worst terror attack in Spanish history, to condemn violence committed in the name of Islam.

Veiled women with young children joined groups of young men at the rally, holding up signs that read “Not in our name” and “I am Muslim and I am not a terrorist”.

“We don´t want killings carried out in the name of Islam. I don’t want people to give me a dirty look on the street, I don’t want people to avoid me,” said Driss Bouzdoudou, 30, who has lived in Spain for the past 14 years.

Elsewhere in Europe, about 3,000 people turned out in driving snow and sub-zero conditions in Stockholm, many holding pens in the air.

Others were shielding candles from the wind in a silent vigil for the victims, according to Journalists Without Borders which organised the Swedish rally.