PARIS: World leaders, including Muslim and Jewish statesmen, linked arms to lead an estimated million-plus French citizens through Paris in a march under high security to pay tribute to the victims of militant attacks.

Paris police said the turnout was “without precedent” but too large to count. One organiser said he had indications it could be between 1.3 and 1.5 million people.

President Francois Hollande and leaders from Germany, Italy, Israel, Turkey, Britain and the Palestinian territories among others, moved 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 marchers from would-be attackers, with police snipers on rooftops and plainclothes detectives mingling with the crowd. City sewers were searched ahead of the vigil and underground train stations around the march route are due to be closed down.

The march mostly went ahead in a respectful silence, reflecting shock over the worst militant assault on a European city in nine years. For France, it raised questions of free speech, religion and security, and beyond French frontiers it exposed the vulnerability of states to urban attacks.

Two of the gunmen had declared allegiance to Al Qaeda in Yemen and a third to the militant Islamic State group. All three were killed during the police operations in what local commentators have called “France’s 9/11”.

“Paris is today the capital of the world. Our entire country will rise up and show its best side,” said President Hollande. “Fantastic France! I am told there could be as many as 1.3 million to 1.5 million of us in Paris,” Francois Lamy, the lawmaker charged by the ruling Socialist Party with organising the rally, tweeted. At least 700,000 more joined vigils in other cities across France.

Seventeen people, including journalists and police, were killed in three days of violence that began with an attack on the weekly Charlie Hebdo known for its satirical attacks on Islam and other religions as well as politicians. It ended on Friday with a hostage-taking at a Jewish deli in which four hostages and the gunman were killed.

Hours before the march, a video emerged featuring a man resembling the gunman killed in the kosher deli. He pledged allegiance to the Islamic State insurgent group and urged French Muslims to follow his example.

“We’re not going to let a little gang of hoodlums run our lives,” said Fanny Appelbaum, 75, who said she had lost two sisters and a brother in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz. “Today, we are all one.”

Zakaria Moumni, a 34-year-old Franco-Moroccan draped in the French flag, agreed: “I am here to show the terrorists they have not won – it is bringing people together of all religions.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi were among 44 foreign leaders marching with President Hollande. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, who earlier encouraged French Jews to emigrate to Israel, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita were also present.

In a rare public display of emotion by two major-power leaders, cameras showed Hollande embracing Merkel, her eyes shut and forehead resting on his cheek, on the steps of the Elysee before they headed off to march.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2015

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