PARIS (AP) " The often quarrelsome French who make it a point of honor to shout their differences, for a parking spot or a high-minded idea, joined in a single cry of "Charlie" at Sunday's unity march, the largest demonstration in Paris since France started keeping track. And that harmonious melding of citizens of all races and colors was breathtaking.
I have attended scores of demonstrations in my three decades as a Paris-based reporter, and never before encountered such huge, and peaceful, shoulder-to-shoulder crowds. No tear gas, no angry demands, no nastinesss of any kind reported. Yet the stakes are higher than anything the French had previously marched for. This time it was for democratic values that include the right to freedom of expression. These are values that the terror attacks by three French citizens, all Islamist radicals, sought to undermine, it is widely agreed " and force the nation that gave birth to the Enlightenment to go dark.
"Je suis Charlie or "We are Charlie" or simply "Charlie" was the overriding slogan of the march, a phrase the world has taken up since the Jan. 7 newsroom massacre in the offices of the irreverent, satiric weekly Charlie Hebdo. France lost some of its top cartoonists.
Even police officers, the fearsome silent presence at most demonstrations, where they occasionally move into action with tear gas and clubs, got their reputations dusted. Three were killed in the recent attacks and, with authorities fearing more terror, the citizenry is coming to appreciate their vigilance. The crowd applauded wildly as a line of police vans made its way through one packed boulevard leading to the Place de la Republique, the starting point of the march that some people never left " and others never reached. "Bravo police!" the people cheered.
"It's a different world today," said Michel Thebault, among those clapping. At 70, he lived through the student movement of 1968 that shook the foundations of France with street battles between police and protester and general strikes that brought the country to a standstill " an image that shadows authorities to this day.