[WATCH] ‘Paris unity rally will remain historically significant’ – Muscat

Prime Minister warns against 'clash of civilisations'

People will not forget today’s unity march in Paris in a hurry and the event will go down in the history books, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.

“It was a true display of European and global unity and humanity,” said Muscat, one of 40 world leaders who took part in today’s march that was attended by over a million people.

“We are coming from a region that is boiling up as a result of different cultures coming together,” Muscat said. “However, it’s important to not let what happened in France this week lead to some sort of clash of civilisations. Rather, we must understand that people of good will exist in every nation, religion and race.”

“One of the comments [in the aftermath of the tragedy] that struck me was when the brother of one of the murdered policemen said that his brother was a Muslim who was killed by terrorists who claim to be Muslims. Now it’s important to see what lessons there are to be learned from this incident- some people tried to bring France down to its knees but instead found Europe on its feet.”    

On Wednesday, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi assaulted the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, killing 12 people- including eight journalists and two police officers. On Thursday, Amedy Coulibaly shot a policewoman dead in Montrouge and on Friday, the same gunman stormed a kosher supermarket and killed four people.   

Coulibaly and the Kouachi brothers were both shot dead on Friday by police in two separate sieges, and a manhunt has been launched for Coulibaly’s partner, Hayat Boumeddiene.

"Paris is the capital of the world today," French President Francois Hollande said during the rally. "The whole country will rise up."