President Obama visits site of Paris attacks
PARIS -- At another time, it would have been a glorious tour of Paris by night. But for the saddest of destinations.
President Barack Obama landed in Paris just before midnight Sunday and his motorcade took on unexpected route along the Seine. He rode past the Eiffel Tower, the French Assembly building and the Bastille. Then, he arrived at the Bataclan.
The American president strode purposefully toward the French concert hall where terrorists wrought so much horror two weeks ago.
Mr. Obama, French President Francois Hollande and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo walked side by side to a makeshift memorial.
According to the network pool accompanying him, Mr. Obama stood for a long minute of silence before the many candles and flowers and wordlessly laid a single rose.
On a cool and clear night, the three bowed their heads for a long moment of silence. Some 130 people died in the deadliest attack on French soil in more than a half-century. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group claimed responsibility.
And then Mr. Obama was gone, ready to turn his focus to the climate change conference that brought him to France.
Thousands of demonstrators gathered in central Paris Sunday and formed a human chain along the route of a long-planned protest march that was banned by France's Socialist government in a security crackdown following attacks by Islamic extremists earlier this month.
In mid-afternoon scuffles broke out between riot police and protesters on the Place de la Republique, where Parisians have gathered to place flowers in remembrance of the 130 mostly young victims of the Nov. 13 attacks.
Environmental and other activists also lined up shoes on Paris streets and held a healing ceremony to urge world leaders to reach a deal to slow climate change.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 174 people were jailed for possible charges. He said, separately, that 26 people have been placed under house arrest, stressing they weren't militants but people known for violence in the past.
Some protesters chanted "a state of emergency is a police state."
Paris Police Chief Michel Cadot told reporters that police identified about 200 or 300 people who violated a ban on all protests under the country's state of emergency. Cadot said Sunday about 100 people who were found to have projectiles or other suspicious objects were detained. Police fired numerous rounds of tear gas on protesters to disperse them.
While some protesters clashed with police in riot gear in the capital, many sought other ways to get their message of needing more urgent action across. French media report several thousand have begun forming a human chain in the city.
They are urging leaders gathering for U.N. climate talks near Paris from Nov. 30 to Dec. 11 to agree to deep emissions cuts and to help poor countries cope with global warming.