Romanian president joins 50 heads of state for huge solidarity march in Paris after Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks

Romanian president Kaus Iohannis will attend the million-people solidarity march in Paris on Sunday, January 11, which follows the massacre at the French magazine Charlie Hebdo earlier this week. The terrorist attack was organized by 3 Jihadists and resulted in 12 dead on the first day, and later on 5 more deaths, until the attackers were killed. The terrorists attacked the French magazine’s headquarters after the satirical magazine had published cartoons of prophet Mohammed. ‘Faced with the barbarian attacks in France, Europe and the entire free world who their unity and solidarity. Our thoughts and hearts were with French citizens from the beginning of these attacks. My presence together with other heads of state and Government in Paris will show Romania’s firm wish to fight terrorism and any form of extremism,’ said the Romanian president in a statement. Iohannis, who was invited by the French president Francois Hollande, who will also be at the event, will not be the only head of state to attend the march – in fact, high level representatives of major EU countries and officials from outside Europe will be in Paris for the event – some 50 heads of state and government in total. The list of guests includes big names such as: Ukrainian president Petro Poroşenko, the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Jordan royal couple, as well as the Russian Foreign Affairs minister Serghei Lavrov, eight Africa leaders, British Prime Minister David Cameron, Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as well as several EU officials, including Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker- president of the European Commission, and Martin Schulz, president of the European Parliament. Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, Swiss president Simonetta Sommarugale, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Belgian counterpart Charles Michel, Dutch PM Mark Rutte, Greek head of the Government Antonis Samaras, his Portuguese counterpart Pedro Passos Coelho, as well as Czech and Latvian PMs Bohuslav Sobotka and Laimdota Straujuma will also attend the march. All these guests will be first met by the French President at the Elysee Palace, and then head to the march in Eastern Paris. Security for the event is at an extremely high level, with several thousand Police officers on the streets, both in uniforms, and as civilians. People will march for over 3 kilometers, between the Republic Square and the Nation Square in Eastern Paris. The event has been already named a French ‘September 11’, reminding of the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001. Before the march, the EU’s Domestic Affairs Ministers will have a meeting in Paris to talk about security measures against terrorist attacks. The Charlie Hedo attackers were two muslim brothers, Cherif Kouachi and Said Kouachi, 32 and 34, who were already known to French and international intelligence. After the attack on the Charlie Hebdo newsroom on Wednesday, January 7, they took a hostage in a printing house in Dammartin-en-Goele, a village 30 kilometers from Paris. After several hours on Friday, the security forces moved on the building, killed the two and freed the hostage. On the same day, an accomplice of the two, Amedy Coulibaly, took 19 hostages in an Israeli supermarket in the Porte de Vincennes suburb of Paris. He was eventually killed by the security forced, and four hostages also died in the attack. Coulibaly's suspected accomplice, 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, espaced as the hostages run from the store, and is currently searched across the country.