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Taoiseach to attend unity rally in Paris tomorrow

The Taoiseach is to attend a mass unity march in Paris tomorrow. Enda Kenny will join other world...
Newstalk
Newstalk

06.59 10 Jan 2015


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Taoiseach to attend unity rall...

Taoiseach to attend unity rally in Paris tomorrow

Newstalk
Newstalk

06.59 10 Jan 2015


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The Taoiseach is to attend a mass unity march in Paris tomorrow.

Enda Kenny will join other world leaders in the French capital, including British Prime Minister David Cameron and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls.

The march will take place at 3pm (French time) at the Place de la République.

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Meanwhile, several events are taking place in Ireland tomorrow to remember victims of the terror attacks.

It comes after tens of thousands of people have staged rallies across France - after three days of terror that claimed 17 lives.

At least 30,000 people took part in a silent rally in southern city of Pau, and more than 22,000 gathered in Orleans, southwest of Paris, according to initial police figures.

Large crowds also turned out in the southern city of Nice and Caen, in the northwest.

France's Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, has said the government will take "all measures" to ensure the march is safe.

Brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi attacked the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday, shooting dead twelve people in France's deadliest terror attack in decades.

The pair then went on the run, and were eventually killed after after a two-day manhunt.

Amedy Coulibaly, a jihadist gunman who said he had worked with the brothers, was also killed by police after killing four hostages at a kosher grocery shop in an eastern suburb of Paris.

A day earlier he shot and killed a policewoman in Montrouge, just south of Paris.

Hayat Boumeddiene (26), who was identified along with Coulibaly as a suspect in the killing of a police officer on Thursday, remains on the run.

On the run:  Hayat Boumeddiene | Image: Préfecture de police

Boumeddiene reportedly started wearing a burkha in May 2009 after meeting Coulibaly and quit her job as a cashier before marrying him in a religious ceremony later that year.

According to French judicial documents, the couple travelled with Cherif Kouachi and his wife in 2010 to central France to visit radical Islamist Djamel Beghal, who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for terror offences.

The pair posed for photos during the visit, taking selfies and a snap of Boumeddiene pointing a crossbow at the camera.

More than 500 phone calls in 2014

Interviewed that year by counter-terrorism officers over Coulibaly's involvement in an attempt to free Paris bomber Smain Ait Ali Belkacem from jail, she was open about her fanatical views.

According to Le Nouvel Observateur, she refused to condemn al-Qaeda attacks, preferring to criticise America's military interventions around the world and the western media.

The links between the couple and the Kouachi's apparently thrived, with Paris prosecutor Francois Molins revealing Boumeddiene and the wife of one of the brothers exchanged more than 500 phone calls in 2014.

Speaking through and interpreter, Mr Molins says there are strong links between the men.

A police search of Coulibaly's residence in 2010 turned up a crossbow, 240 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition, films and photos of him during a trip to Malaysia, and letters seeking false official documents.

In a police interview that same year, Coulibaly identified Cherif Kouachi as a friend he had met in prison and said they saw each other frequently, according to a transcript of the interview obtained by the Journal du Dimanche newspaper.

According to the newspaper, he told the police that people he met in prison used the nickname "Dolly" for him.

He was employed as a temp worker at a Coca-Cola factory and reportedly met then-President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2009.

"I know a lot of criminals because I met heaps of them in detention," he is quoted as telling the police.

Michel Thooris, secretary-general of France's police union, said he did not believe the men behind the Paris attacks were "three people isolated in their little world."

"This could very well be a little cell," he said.

"There are probably more than three people," he added, given that Cherif Kouachi and Coulibaly had had contacts with other jihadist groups in the past.

The French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, speaking in a TV interview late on Friday, also indicated authorities are bracing for the possibility of new attacks.

"We are facing a major challenge" and "very determined individuals," he said.

Mr Valls has called on people to stay vigilant.


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