Poirot - The politicians and political leaders were in a staged photo, they were in a closed off street with lots of police etc around.

They were in no way part of the others look how nicely dressed they all are. Never let a good photo opportunity get in the way of the truth.

They even had to Photoshop the final pictures that were released.

The caption what a load of rubbish Quote "Photo: French president Francois Hollande and other world leaders led the march in central Paris.

For the true photos follow the link
http://www.blacklistednews.com/A_Photo-Op_and_Photoshop_For_the_Hypocrites/40779/0/38/38/Y/M.html

Yes, Philip..I've seen the reality on twitter.

They did manage to pull off the illusion that they were with the crowd during the actual march.

Lol!..we should've realised!

I like the way the took multiple photos depending on what country it would be shown in.

Further proof the MSM are just puppets for the politicians and will very rarely give a true account of an event.

Dear OnTheBeach,

<<Cartoonists should be able to offend without being butchered.

The offenders are not 'psychopaths' either. They are Islamic fundamentalists.>>

First, yes - they should be able to OFFEND without being butchered.

However, they offend - and that isn't good.

These cartoonists are not 'psychopaths' either. They are secularist fundamentalists.

The problem is that we, ordinary people, are caught in the cross-fire between those two fundamentalist sects.

<<The world need more courageous men and women to speak up and oppose tyranny.>>

Speaking up, or should I say Squeaking up, is not courageous (especially not under constant police escort, as cartoonists will have from now on) - it's like small dogs barking at high pitch when afraid of a bigger dog who barely growls in a low pitch.

Tyranny is created by fear: a dozen people killed is nothing compared with the number of people dying on the same day from natural causes, road accidents, wrong medical prescriptions, domestic violence, drowning, etc. What makes it tyranny is the loud squeaking around it - a victory to terrorism.

Security forces are there to deal objectively and professionally with the situation - the media is only disturbing.

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Dear Philip S. & Poirot,

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Two million people participated in the march in Paris. In view of the huge number, there were two routes between the place de la République and the place de la Nation: the main (direct) route via the Boulevard Voltaire, and a secondary route, much longer.

For security reasons, the 50 « heads of state » who led the main trajectory of the march only walked the first 500 meters along the boulevard Voltaire, separated by about 100 meters from the rest of the marchers and completely surrounded by police as well as their own personal security guards. Those first 500 meters had already been screened and secured by the police the day before, building by building, apartment by apartment as well as the sewage system under the boulevard. On the day of the march, police snipers were positioned on the roof tops along this 500 meters. It was only a symbolical participation. The “heads of state” were all whisked away in special buses at the end of the 500 meter march.

All this was filmed live by French television from start to finish. Naturally, the front line marchers were the most in view. It was on direct and there was no way anybody could tamper with the film. What we did see was France’s previous president, Sarkozy, elbowing his way through to the front line to the limelight next to Netanyahu. It’s a bit of a joke in the French press at the moment.

Rumour has it in France that president Hollande had not intended to invite either Netanyahu or the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas because he did not want to complicate the message of the march. It seems that Netanyahu insisted because two of his ministers (political rivals) were to participate and in view of the current political campaign for the legislative elections in Israel in March he did not want to give them an advantage. Hollande felt obliged to accept but invited Abbas as well.

This Wednesday’s edition of Charlie Hebdo caricatures Muhammad once again :

http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2015/01/12/mahomet-en-une-du-charlie-hebdo-de-mercredi_1179193

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Dear George,

I found this perspective on Charlie Hebdo from a French contributor to Reddit interesting;

“French dude here. Charlie Hebdo is not quite my generation, so I may be totally wrong about the way I see all of this.

French humor, just like US and UK, was way more open a few decades ago. We had magazines (Charlie Hebdo, Fluide Glacial), TV shows and movies (Les Nuls, Les Inconnus), stand up (Bigard, Élie Kakou) and more who were ready to poke fun at all topics, whether they were politics, religion, wealth, history... My favorites are Les Nuls, who touched all of theses topics and more (e.g. a fake commercial for a "no more nails" glue depicting Jesus alive on a cross, very literal grammar Nazis bits...) with, as far as I remember, little to no backslash.

Charlie Hebdo was one of the survivors (or rather a resurection) from this era. The main difference between them and others, is that Charlie was led by a bunch of old guys who didn't care. Which is an amazing thing. Instead of making jokes in context of something controversial, they would directly attack whoever was in the center with no regard for consequences. That was the whole point. Just look at when they changed the name of the journal for "Charia Hebdo" (a pun on Sharia). Brilliant? Yes. Stupid? Just as much. But they did not care. It was already a response to previous threats and all they wanted is to keep pushing it.

I am working in the US and I got news from my mom, who read these her whole life. She told me it's the end of an era. Charlie Hebdo, and the people we lost in this tragedy were the few remaining loud assholes that you can only miss when they're gone.

It's not about free speech, it's about using it. Almost everyone who will read this have the right of free speech. The real question is who will have the balls to push it to its limit.”