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Updated 6pm
SOME 1.6 MILLION people flooded Paris during today’s massive ‘unity’ rally in a historic display of global defiance against extremism after attacks that left 17 dead this week.
In total, at least 3.7 million people in France marched in the biggest mobilisation ever recorded in the country.
As evening fell, the crowds remained in the city centre, basking in the atmosphere of unity that hung in the air all day.
French President Francois Hollande led the procession from the Place de la Republique, flanked by world leaders, including Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and followed by a crowd of hundreds of thousands.
Carrying placards and chanting “Charlie! Charlie!” in memory of the journalists and policeman gunned down at the offices of Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine on Wednesday, the crowds had been gathering since early this morning.
The crowd was also marking the death of four Jews killed when an Islamist gunman stormed a kosher supermarket and a policewoman gunned down in cold blood.
Emotions ran high in the grieving City of Light, with many of those marching bursting into tears as they came together under the banner of freedom of speech and liberty after France’s worst terrorist bloodbath in more than half a century.
The crowd brandished banners saying: “I’m French and I’m not scared” and, in tribute to the murdered cartoonists, “Make fun, not war” and “Ink should flow, not blood.”
The grieving families of those who died in the shootings led the march, alongside the representatives of around 50 countries.
Patrick Pelloux, a Charlie Hebdo columnist, fell sobbing into the arms of Hollande in an emotional embrace.
In an unprecedented show of unity, the leaders of Israel and the Palestinian Authority both attended the rally to honour the victims of three days of bloodshed that claimed the lives of both Jews and a Muslim police officer.
Security was beefed up as the City of Light reels from the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket. Thousands of extra troops and police were also deployed to guard the march and snipers positioned along the route.
“Today, Paris is the capital of the world,” Hollande said earlier.
“The entire country will rise up.”
https://vine.co/v/ODaT37l76KX
Leaders
Along with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, top European leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron joined Hollande at the front of the march.
US President Barack Obama was represented by Attorney General Eric Holder.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny also attended today’s event. A spokesperson said this morning that his participation was “a demonstration of Ireland’s solidarity with the French people at this tragic time”.
From New York to Tokyo, similar events have been taking place around the world this weekend.
In Dublin, a silent march in began at The Spire on O’Connell Street at midday, while events were also held in Cork and Galway.
Includes reporting from © AFP, 2015 and Michelle Hennessy.
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One unintended consequence of Brexit is that dozens of English news stories keep wandering across the pond.
That, or there’s a Journal.co.uk and I’ve accidentally found my way onto it…
@jamesdecay:
and accurate reporting would help.
“In his interview with BBC Radio 4 following his nomination, Moore spoke of his support for Brexit…”
That should be Boycott, unless Moore has since become a man and took over from Boycott in the interview.
@The Quare Fella: I’m going to give the UK Journal some leeway. They must be terribly overworked and understaffed…
It happened 21 years ago, he was punished by the courts. Move on..
@Paul O’Sullivan: yes move on…. and don’t honour the man with a knighthood… leave him in the shadows where he belongs
@Paul O’Sullivan: eh, the reason for his knighthood is also quite a long time ago. Even further back actually. Makes your argument a bit redundant.
@Dave O’Keeffe: I couldn’t give a flying f#£k if he got a knighthood. My argument is a third party interfering in a man’s life
@Paul O’Sullivan: as a 3rd party if very much sounds like he interfered in his victims life
@Paul O’Sullivan: You didn’t think this all the way through huh? Shocker.
“…Boycott pinned Moore down in a hotel room and punched her in the face 20 times before checking out and leaving her to pay the bill.”
@Smidgen Dublin: horrific
@Rebecca De Stanleigh: It would be if it were true. It’s difficult to prove you’re innocent when you’ve someone trying to blackmail you.
I give him the benefit of the doubt.
@bopter: I give her the benefit of the doubt based on the photos of her injuries produced in court evidence.
@bopter: He was convicted in a French court of law. And the excuse that in France you are guilty until proven innocent is both feeble and untrue; they also have the presumption of innocence. The only proof of her alleged blackmail is him whinging about it while calling a female BBC interviewer ‘love’.
@Smidgen Dublin: That was Moore’s testimony which Boycott has always refuted.
It’s a fact that this woman was in severe financial difficulties at the time and Boycott alleged that she was trying to blackmail him for £1 million.
Apart from this incident Boycott has no history of violence or abuse whatsoever. That doesn’t mean he’s innocent but the violence described in this case would point to a man incapable of holding his temper.
Finally, the French justice system is weighted in favour of the alleged victim. Innocent until proven guilty does not apply under the Napoleonic code (as far as I’m aware, that could have changed over time).
@Will: Scratch that last bit, a common misconception apparently that would be superseded by the UN declaration on Human Rights anyway.
@Will: What’s ails you? I feel sorry for you. You can’t beat a woman. Ever.
@Smidgen Dublin: Really, ever? You see a women beating your child you do nothing? A woman is beating your elderly parent? Your wife? A gang of women beating a man to death? Any defenseless being being beaten by a woman? The Woman is 6ft and 21 stone and man 5ft2 and 10 stone and she is beating him he should just take it?
@Craic_a_tower: What’s wrong with you? Why is meeting violence with violence the only resolution you see here?
@Will: I guess Will is a woman beater going by his defense of this guy.
@Craic_a_tower: you sure have a lot of fantasies about beating woman.
@Smidgen Dublin: Why are you exaggerating and suggesting women are always weak and physical intervention should never happen. If you saw a man beating a women would you not physically intervene? Are you saying you would just politely ask him to stop? I never said anything about being violent I asked you what you would do and you didn’t answer
@Craic_a_tower: I suggested nothing of the sort about women. No-one has to answer you.
@Smidgen Dublin: Well you said no man should beat a women ever why? Regardless of gender physically intervention may be required. If you don’t want to answer then don’t answer at all. Nice to have an opinion if you never have to explain it but state to everybody else.
@Craic_a_tower: Yes it is. Thank you.
Beats me why anyone deserves a Knighthood for playing Cricket. Also Theresa May might have been better to err on the side of caution and leave him out. Just make him another tin of buns Theresa.
@Aine O Connor: Chocolate Brownies to be precise.
@Aine O Connor: who, he beats you?
@Aine O Connor: You don’t think Sir Richard Hadlee deserved a knighthood?!
Two lovely black eyes
O what a surprise
Only for telling a man he was wrong
Two lovely black eyes
Song by charles coburn
1910
Puts the ‘false accusations ruin lives’ shite into perspective when you see that even a conviction doesn’t do anything to this pr**k.
Everyone, let’s boycott boycott!!!
On the one hand, he punched a woman in the face twenty times. But on the other hand, he ran up and down on a cricket field a lot. So, you know, two sides.
And I genuinely thought that stuff like domestic abuse is a requirement for knighthood.
have your say