• Tweeter
  • republish

Place Léon Blum, in Paris, French and foreign flags flutter. The slogan "I am Charlie" is omnipresent. RFI / Pierre René-Worms

A huge crowd gathered on January 11, 2015 in Paris for a republican march organized in tribute to the 17 people killed that week by three French jihadists, notably at the headquarters of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and in a kosher mini-market. A historic gathering.

A first image: the President of the Republic François Hollande embraces Patrick Pelloux, one of the members of the Charlie Hebdo team , also an emergency doctor. One of the first on the scene of the killing. Then the president greeted one by one all the members of the newspaper team, the survivors, a white blindfold around their heads and their eyes filled with tears. A few moments later he was with the families of the four people killed in the kosher supermarket at Porte de Vincennes.

Read also: Five years ago, the Kouachi brothers attacked “Charlie Hebdo”

In Paris, hundreds of thousands of people on the street say "no" to terrorism. A crowd bristling with the sign "I am Charlie". On the balloons: "I am Charlie, a cop, a Jew, I am the Republic". There are so many people that the demonstration is divided into several processions.

Side by side, François Hollande with around fifty heads of state and government from Germany, Mali or the Palestinian territories. Religious leaders of different faiths and French politicians on the right and on the left are also present.

President François Hollande (center), surrounded by Malian President IBK (left), Chancellor Angela Merkel (right) and many heads of state and representatives of foreign governments, during the Republican march, January 11, 2015 RFI / Pierre René-Worms

Unheard of, we are witnessing a human tide applauded by the crowd gathered at the windows of buildings: a standing France, united against terrorism, it is January 11, 2015.

Read also: Five years later, tributes to the victims of the January 2015 attacks