2MILLION MARCH TO DEFY TERRORISTS IN PARIS
The last time Paris witnessed a crowd l i ke this, i t was being liberated from Nazi rule. Back in August 1944, there was euphoria, chaos and much kissing and garlanding of the Allied heroes. Yesterday’s atmosphere could hardly have been more different as two million solemn, pencil-waving protesters – three times the number expected – marched through this troubled city, led by a hermetically-sealed delegation of world leaders while 5,500 troops and police officers manned every street corner and rooftop.
Not so much Liberation Day as Day of the Jackal. Indeed, security was so tight that there was barely any applause, let alone an embrace, for those allies here yesterday. Almost 50 heads of government – including David Cameron, Angela Merkel and the leaders of both Israel and Palestine – joined President Francois hollande for an awkward stroll, arm-in-arm, along a short, empty stretch of the Boulevard Voltaire.
The paranoia was understandable. No one here is under any illusion that these streets are any safer following the death of three terrorists in last week’s atrocities in which 17 people died. No one has a clue how many other jihadi psychopaths might be out there plotting the next horror.
But the enduring image of yesterday’s events will not be the politicians. It will be an historic twin display of dignity and outrage by a seemingly endless tumult of humanity. With several protest marches in other French towns cities, too, it is estimated that some 3.7 million people were on the move yesterday across the country.
This colossal demonstration started off in reflective, even subdued mood with none of the passions one might expect from a pro-
‘Dignity and
outrage’
test of this magnitude. No whistles. No megaphones. No cries of ‘What do we want?....’.
There were few slogans beyond the mantra of ‘Je Suis Charlie’, the homage to the victims of Wednesday’s massacre at Charlie hebdo magazine. By the end of it all, however, there was a sense of fresh resolve, of renewal. But despite all the rhetoric about togetherness, there could be no avoiding some awkward truths.
This had been billed as a ‘unity’ rally. Yet one of France’s most prominent politicians had stayed away. Marine Le Pen, leader of the far right National Front, claimed that she had not been invited, although President hollande had insisted that all were welcome. even her fiercest opponents in the crowd yesterday told me they were sorry Miss Le Pen had not turned up. She was reported to be staging her own event near her home in southern France.
The crowds here in Paris were, almost without exception, i mpeccably wellbehaved. At the start line on Place de la Republique, I found tens of thousands of marchers who had been squashed together on the same spot for several hours, purely to claim pride of place.
Just behind them, the largest banner of the lot proclaimed: ‘Je pense donc je suis… Charlie’, a pun on Rene Descartes’s maxim ‘I think therefore I am’. A philosophical pun on a day like this? Only in France.
Almost everyone seemed to be carrying a pen, in honour of the murdered cartoonists. Some people had inflatable pens. half a dozen people had come encased in a huge 20ft pantomime horse-style pen.
Many carried the French Tricolor, too. Maggy Tomime, 20, was one of several Jewish protesters draped in the flag of Israel in tribute to the four hostages murdered in a nearby kosher supermarket. ‘We are being brave,’ she told me. ‘But we are worried, too,’ her mother chimed in.
Despite the crush, the authorities kept everyone waiting an extra 25 minutes until President hollande and his guests had taken their positions ahead of the main crowd. he has form in this regard. Last summer, he kept all those poor D-Day veterans sweltering in the sun on Normandy’s Sword
Beach for an hour because his VIP lunch had overrun. Grumbling broke out, along with several bursts of the ‘ marchons, marchons’ bit of the national anthem. And then, finally, it got underway, albeit at the pace of the national dish. In fact, the average snail would could have overtaken us. The sheer weight of the crowds – now being channelled down three different routes towards Place de la Nation two miles away – meant that the police had to stagger our progress.
It was a very different atmosphere for the world l eaders as they walked through their sterile zone, past fashion boutiques with their shutters down and a Le Weekend bar which had been ordered to close until they had left.
Taking part in his first demo since the Countryside March of 2002, Mr Cameron amplified the peace and unity message by striding arm-in-arm with a member of the Kinnock family (Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt who is married to the ex-Labour leader’s son) and the Gibraltar- obsessed Spanish PM, Mariano Rajoy. Mr Hollande hooked up with Mrs Merkel and Mali’s president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
The only eyewitnesses to this bizarre scene were the occupants of apartments overlooking the route, among them medical student Pierrick Adam, 25. ‘It was a very emotional moment to see everyone so united,’ he told me. Once the politicians had rejoined their motorcades, the street burst into life as the bars reopened and the massed millions came trudging past.
At one point, I broke off down a side street to see the procession on TV in a bar. I returned to find that the crowd had moved forward exactly 100 yards. Later, attempting a shortcut, I bumped into the French Prime Minister, Michel Manuel Valls, doing the same.
People who had started assembling in the midday sun were reaching the end of their walk in darkness. Even then, some people were still just setting off back in Place de la Republique.
As dusk fell, there was another unforgettable moment near the Place de la Nation. Noisy applause broke out as a stern-faced unit of France’s no-nonsense CRS riot police barged through. When was the last time they got cheered at a demo?
Come the end, there was profound – if whispered – relief that the whole thing had passed off without some ghastliness from the forces of hatred. There was, across the French media, genuine appreciation for the global sense of solidarity – typified by the sight of Tower Bridge and Trafalgar Square (synonymous with an Anglo-French bust-up) illuminated with the Tricolor.
There have been some momentous gatherings in this city. I well recall the last one – the World Cup victory party in 1998. For very, very different reasons, no one is going to forget this one either. But I suspect they will feel equally pleased and proud that they were here.