A massive demonstration took place in Paris on Sunday January 11th as French citizens came out in their millions to voice their solidarity after the Charlie Hebdo massacres, and two bloody sieges last week, including the murders of four people in a Parisian Jewish supermarket, and the shooting of a woman police officer, which left 17 innocent people dead. In Paris a huge procession linking the two huge public squares, the place de la République and the place de la Nation, attracted around 1.7 million people. For the first time in a quarter of a century a French president was on the streets marching with the people. President François Hollande, who said that “Today, Paris is the capital of the world” was joined by close to 50 world leaders who had come to France to pay their respects and stand shoulder to shoulder with the French people. But the huge turnout was not confined to Paris. Gatherings involving a total of 2 million people were held in cities and towns across France. And marches were held in other countries, too, to reflect the wave of revulsion over the unprecedented attack on freedom of speech when 12 people at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo were gunned down last Wednesday just after 11am, and continued with the killings of police officers and the slaughter of four people in a Jewish supermarket on Friday. This is an account of the key events as they happened, with numerous photos from the march in Paris.
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Record figure. The ministry of the interior in Paris has put the official figure for the number of people in France who attended demonstrations at 3.7 million - 1.7 million in Paris and 2 million around the country. This makes it the biggest demonstration seen in France since the end of World War II.
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European demonstrations. One of the biggest gatherings outside France took place in Brussels, with around 20,000 taking to the streets of the Belgian capital, according to the police. Some 18,000 demonstrated in Berlin, while in Vienna about 12,000 people joined the gathering there. In Stockholm the figure was 3,000, in London it was 2,000 and it was around 1,500 in Athens.
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Marine Le Pen. So where was the president of the far-right National Front all day? Having not been invited to the march in Paris, Le Pen stayed away from there but did march in Beaucaire in the south of France, claiming she had been “excluded” from the gathering in the capital by the “parties of the system”. In a speech she said: “If being Charlie means defending freedom of expression and defending it all of the time, including for those who disagree with you, then I am Charlie,” she said to considerable applause but also some whistles, as can be heard on this FranceTV Info video:
As for her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, he chose the day to announce he would be a candidate in December's regional elections. Le Pen-the -elder has already said he is not “Charlie” as in “Charlie Hebdo” but instead “Charlie” as in “Charlie Martel” (or Charles Martel), a typically provocative reference to the Frankish statesmen credited with repelling the invasion of France by the Moors (who were Muslims) in the Battle of Poitiers in 732 AD.
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Amazing statistic. According to the latest estimates around 300,000 took part in the gathering in Lyon. This means that approximately a quarter of the entire population of the greater Lyon urban area joined the march there.
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Mediapart English regular contributor Sue Landau attended the march in Paris and gives her impressions:
1pm: On the way to the march, a man on a suburban platform asks me what is the right station for République. He says he has come from Corrèze in south-west France. “Don’t be afraid”, he says before asking. I’m surprised. I’m not afraid, I feel totally safe. It seems everyone on the train is going to the march.
1.30pm: Change trains to stop by HyperCacher, the kosher superette where four people were gunned down on Friday. It seems everyone on this train is going to the march too. At HyperCacher there is just a gaggle of people behind police cordons. So on to République in a metro packed to bursting, over an hour before the march is to begin.
2pm: This demonstration is different from all others. For a start, so many people. An hour before it is due to start there is no way to get nearer than the outer edge of the square. Another thing – no contingents, just people. Wall to wall people. All the way up the boulevards leading to République, people are pouring towards the square.
3pm: And then there is the feeling that everyone is there. Children, even a dog, people of all origins. And the unity is palpable. Placards saying “I am Charlie, I am a cop, I am a Jew”, one written in Hebrew and German, another with a red poppy of black background saying: “A friend falls, another gets up to take his place”. As to what any political figure said, we’ll have to watch that later on TV...
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Place de la Nation, above and below: At around 4p.m., as marchers were still leaving Place de la République three kilometres away, tens of thousands of people had already begun filling the Place de la Nation, the end-point of the march as these pictures from Graham Tearse of the Mediapart English team show.
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Oh, and The Dog which Sue mentioned...
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Huge numbers. The total number of people who marched in France on Sunday is put at anywhere between two to three million. In Paris, where organisers said 1.5 million people took part, the ministry of the interior said it was impossible to give precise numbers and that the turnout had been “unprecedented”.
Some more figures have come in, meanwhile, for demonstrations in other towns and cities in France: more than 50,000 people in Brest, 20,000 in Quimper and 20,000 at Vannes, 70,000 in Clermont-Ferrand, 35,000 in Tours, 11,000 at Châteauroux, 4,000 at Compiègne, 15,000 at Poitiers, 30,000 in La Rochelle, 15,000 in Périgueux, 20,000 at Angoulême and 10,000 in Libourne.
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Place de la Nation (below):
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Place de la Nation (below): This Muslim man also had a clear message.
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Place de la Nation (below): As dusk approaches the crowds are still pouring into the square, here along the avenue philippe-Auguste, one of the two march routes from place de la République.
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At nightfall, a cortège led by the French Union of Jewish Students (UEFJ) arrives at the Place de la Nation with the banner 'I am Charlie, I am a police officer, I am Jewish, We are the [French] republic'.
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Earlier, Place de la Nation (below): This Muslim couple, Hind (left) and Hossein Mursi said they felt they had to come on the march to say that "Islam equals peace and tolerance". Their seven children, aged between 13- and 30-years-old, were also on the march.
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Place de la Nation (above): The square's central bronze statue, fittingly called 'The Triumph of the Republic', is borrowed by a lively crowd who burst, every so often, into chants of "Charli-berté" and renderings of the French anthem. A joyfull and poignant scene.
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Place de la Nation (above): A woman holds up a placard showing the photo of Mustapha Ourrad, a copy editor at Charlie Hebdo who died in the massacre. 'Algerian of Kabyle origin, born French' is written beside the photo, and underneath it reads: 'Dead or alive, we are all human beings - Charlie'.
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Place de la Nation (above): Under the statue of 'The Triumph of the Republic', the banner on the left of this picture reads 'Against the shock of civilisations', a reference to a phrase infamously peddled in France by interior minister Claude Guéant, during former president Nicolas Sarkozy's 2007-2012 presidency.
Place de la Nation (below): 'Violence retreats there where solidarity advances', reads this message, reflecting the thoughts that many have voiced in all the numerous soul-searching discussions about French society relayed by the media that have occurred since the terrorist attacks last week.
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Place de la Nation (below): Marchers were still arriving into the square at 6.30 p.m., as this photo shows:
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Place de la Nation (below): This effigy of a bloodied French republic, carried by some half-dozen men, to a rolling, dramatic physical rythm of falling and getting back on its feet, was accompanied by the stirring sound of gongs, drawing loud applause from the crowds as it made its way to the centre of the square. "It was a very moving moment for all who watched", reports Graham Tearse at the scene, who added: "Those present clearly felt France was back on it's feet tonight, amid an atmosphere of quite marked collective fraternity, but now the question is for how long will that elan last?"
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Jewish Defence League. A Mediapart journalist reports that several thousand people have responded to an appeal from the Jewish Defence League - the Ligue de défense juive – to gather near the site of the Hyper Cacher kosher supermarket at the Porte de Vincennes in Paris where four people were killed in last Friday's siege. People are chanting the Israeli anthem and shouting: “Israel will live, Israel will overcome”.
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Staying put. The scene at the place de la République in Paris which was the starting point of the march ... but where some people seem determined to remain:
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Place de la Nation (below): Graham Tearse reports from the crowd-filled square where, as dusk draws, more than a million people are reported to be arriving. "Two of several surveillance helicopters circle overhead, watching over events on the square in what must be an extremely challenging situation for security forces".
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1.5 million. Organisers estimate that around 1.5 million people have taken part in today's immense march in Paris. This brings the total number taking part across France to 2.5 million – with tens of thousands more around the world also joining in.
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Place de la Nation (above and below): Thibaut is a professional artist. He was draped in the French flag and said he was present firstly out of outrage as a citizen, and secondly in solidarity with Charlie Hebdo magazine. He put together a series of sketches depicting the rally in the Place de la Nation on Sunday, and also of that which took place in the Place de la République (see below) on January 7th, the day of the massacre at Charlie Hebdo.
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Humour. Amid the tears and solemnity there has been some humour, too, on the march, in keeping with the always irreverent tone adopted by Charlie Hebdo itself. This man's placard reads: “I'm not for or against anything, I just like going for a stroll in the street with a placard.”
More humour at the Place de la Nation (below): This makeshift cartoon reflects the characteristic, irreverent style of the Charlie Hebdo artists gunned down on January 7th. towards every religion. Here it’s the Christian god who comments how, after the arrival of the cartoonists in heaven, they wasted no time in decorating the clouds with their pens: “They’ve already sketched cocks everywhere”, laments god. The women demonstrators also hold posters declaring: 'I am Charlie, I am Jewish, I am a policewoman', in a tribute to all those who make up the devastating toll of last week's terrorist attacks.
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Charlie Hebdo. The march in Paris was led by surviving members of the Charlie Hebdo editorial team and families of those who died, as seen in this photo from Mediapart's Mathieu Magnaudeix:
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A million. According to an estimate at 4pm around 230 demonstrations have taken place across France today, with more than a million people taking part – not including the march in Paris. The figures include around 80,000 who gathered at the Vieux-Port in Marseille and 70,000 who marched in Grenoble in south-east France.
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Place de la Nation (below): At 7p.m. marchers were still arriving in the square from the Place de la République, three kilometres away.
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Hold on, they kept walking into the centre of the Nation square. That banner again (below):
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Place de la Nation (below): Joël (centre) has joint French-Angolan nationality. He works for French electricity supply giant EDF. Shocked by the terror attacks, he said he felt no choice but to join the march and brought the Angolan flag to wave as a sign of solidarity.
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Manuel Valls. The French prime minister Manuel Valls has spoken to French television station France 2. “It's for the people today to express themselves. Today Paris is the capital of the world, of freedom, of democracy. What's so impressive is the silence, the [singing of] the [French anthem] Marseillaise, the dignity. It's the best possible response to what we have gone through,” he said.
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Lyon. The number of demonstrators is clearly huge across the whole of the country – there are reports that between 150,000 and 200,000 people have taken part in a march in the major city of Lyon in the east of France.
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CCIF. The French anti-Islamophobia group the Collectif contre l'islamophobie en France (CCIF) explained why they have refused to take part in today's march, having been one of the first groups to calls for such a demonstration. They said in a statement that what was supposed to have been a “demonstration of national unity” has gradually become a “platform for Islamophobic ideas and hatred against Muslims.” The CCIF continued: “The presence of [Israeli prime minister Benjamin] Netanyahou and of [Israeli foreign minister Avigdor] Liberman represents that which this demonstration today was supposed to attack. They are racist towards Arabs, Blacks, Muslims and all the rest but above all they are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians. We excluded Marine Le Pen because she has said controversial things, and the xenophobic political stance of the [Front National] is no secret. Why do we treat these two criminals differently?”
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Cartoons. Inevitably cartoons are a major theme of the march and Mediapart journalist Marine Turchi has taken this photo of demonstrators with cartoons on Boulevard Beaumarchais:
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Le Pen panned. Marches have been taking place in other countries too, for example in Brussels where this banner has been causing much mirth on Twitter. It shows the head of France's far-right Front National, Marine Le Pen, who was not at the march in Paris and who has been accused of exploiting last week's tragedy for political ends. A play on words of the 'Je suis Charlie' slogan, a polite way of translating 'Je suis une conne' is: “I'm a jerk”.
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Mélenchon. Asked by Mediapart about the presence of the world leaders, which some say has taken the event away from ordinary citizens, Jean-Luc Mélenchon of the hard-left Front de Gauche said: “You have to be in tune with what is happening here. The people don't give a damn about all that, what counts for them is the demonstration of brotherhood that they are showing. It's extraordinary what's happening here. In our adversity we have been put in a situation where we have been able to show the best of ourselves.”
He added: You have figures who come here to try to be part of it to help their own reputation, they're heads of state and heads of foreign governments, I'd say we have a duty of courtesy towards them [..] but no one is fooled, we know who they are and what we think of them hasn't changed because they're here.” Speaking about the situation after the attacks, he said: “We have to choose our words, there is not a war, we have to be vigilant, we must not lose our cool.”
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A sea of people. The scale of the crowds captured by Mediapart reporter Yannick Sanchez @yannicksanchez :
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In moving scenes President Hollande then met families of the victims of last week's terror attacks.
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At 3.45pm the 'international' part of the march ended, with different leaders making their way back to their embassies in Paris. But not before an extraordinary scene in which President Hollande kissed, embraced or shook hands with all the world leaders present, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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The march started a little later than expected, with French President François Hollande in the middle at the head of the political section of the procession, just behidn the families of last week's victims. On the left of the French president was German chancellor Angela Merkel, on the right was Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, the president of Mali where French troops are still engaged in action against local Islamist groups. Further to the right was the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker, who was tactfully separated from British prime minister David Cameron by the diminutive figure of Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo:
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The scale of the gatherings across France became apparent: 40,000 people taking part in a march in Perpignan in southern France, 25,000 at Toulon, also in the south, 14,000 in Tarbes in the south-west, 10,000 at Colmar in north-east France and 15,000 at Blois south of Paris. At Dammartin-en-Goële, the small town north-east of Paris where the brothers who carried out the Charlie Hebdo killings, Saïd and Chérif Kouachi, were killed after a siege at a printing firm on Friday, some 10,000 local people gathered.
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UMP. Leaders from the right-wing opposition party, the UMP, taking part in the demonstration:
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Boulevard des filles du Calvaire. Photo sent by one of Mediapart's journalists Yannick Sanchez :
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Front de gauche. At the Cirque d'Hiver, not far from the place de la République, members of the hard-left Front de gauche gathering for the demonstration..
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Place de la Nation (below): Benjamin (left) and Lou, both Paris students, carried placards telling of their discomfort at the presence on Sunday of some foreign leaders and their representatives.
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Where it began (below): Place de la République, as people gather for the march east to Place de la Nation.
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