Paris March Organizer Cites Million-Plus Turnout
Unity: Demonstrators participate in a mass rally following the recent terrorist attacks in Paris, where an estimated one million people have converged. Image by Getty Images
An organizer of Sunday’s march in Paris to honor the victims of the Islamist attacks in France said the turnout could surpass one million.
“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 organizing the rally, tweeted.
Fantastique France ! On me dit que nous serions entre 1,3 et 1,5 millions à Paris
— François Lamy (@lamy_f) January 11, 2015
No official police estimates have been released on the number of marchers at Sunday’s rally, but media outlets put the crowd at more than 1 million.
Paris is home to 2.3 million people.
Dozens of world leaders attended the event, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who marched in the front row of the foreign dignitaries several people apart, with Hollande in the middle.
There were no speeches at the rally. Marchers carried signs in French reading “I am Charlie,” referring to the satirical magazine where 12 staff members and security forces were killed on Jan. 6. Other signs read in French “I am Jewish,” representing the four men killed during an attack Friday on a kosher supermarket in a Paris suburb.
With JTA
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
