Excerpt:
Tens of thousands of people joined rallies in Paris and other French cities on Wednesday to pay tribute to the victims of a massacre by Islamist gunmen at the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.
In Paris, crowds of people swarmed into the Place de la Republique that lies barely a kilometre (half a mile) from the scene of the bloodbath that has shocked France.
At least 20,000 people also gathered in the French cities of Lyon and Toulouse, police said, after 12 people were killed by heavily armed gunmen screaming "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest).