Washington: About a hundred thousand people rallied worldwide in solidarity with France on Sunday, with marchers across Europe and the Middle East chanting "Je suis Charlie" and holding pens in the air. From Berlin to Washington and Jerusalem to Beirut, crowds waved French flags and sang France's national anthem "La Marseillaise" following the Islamist attacks that killed 17 people, most at the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.
Christians, Muslims and Jews alike took part in the rallies, held as nearly four million people took to the streets in unity marches across France. In Israel, where four French Jews killed in a Paris supermarket attack will be buried, more than 500 people gathered in Jerusalem in front of a screen reading in French "Jerusalem is Charlie."
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"This is an attack on all of us -- on the Jewish people, on freedom of media and expression," Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said. Chief rabbi Shlomo Amar said a prayer for the victims. Dozens of Palestinians also held a rally in the West Bank city of Ramallah, waving Palestinian and French flags and holding up banners reading "Palestine stands with France against terrorism."
Hamas-run Gaza paid tribute to the victims during a candlelit vigil in the tiny coastal enclave. Across the Atlantic, about 25,000 people marched in a huge rally in Canada's French-speaking city of Montreal, organizers said. And in the US capital, several thousand were led in a silent march by French Ambassador Gerard Araud, who brandished a sign with the message, in English, "We are Charlie."
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"I'm here at the request of Washington's French people, because, like me, they are frustrated to see their country facing such a serious crisis" from so far away, Araud said. By his side were ambassadors from the European Union, Germany, Italy, Lithuania and Ukraine, as well as top US diplomat for European affairs Victoria Nuland and IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde.
"Je suis Charlie! I am Charlie," Lagarde chanted.
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"Obviously, we stand here with our French allies at this very very important moment in solidarity against this kind of violence and terrorism, and in support of the values of freedom and free speech that we both embody as nations," Nuland told AFP. UN chief Ban Ki-moon was "deeply moved" by the march and the "displays of global solidarity," his spokesman said.
