David Goldman/AP
World leaders including Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Germany’s Angela Merkel, Britain’s David Cameron, and the Palestinian Authority’s Mahmoud Abbas may have joined French President François Hollande to walk arm in arm on Sunday at France’s unity rally, but no top-level U.S. official took part. Attorney General Eric Holder, who had flown to Paris for anti-terrorism talks in the wake of the attacks that killed 17, departed before France’s largest ever rally to attend “urgent meetings” in Washington, a Department of Justice official told BuzzFeed. Before leaving, he delivered a message of U.S. support: “On this day, we are all French citizens. I am a citizen of France, and we stand in solidarity with the French people.” The U.S. ambassador to France, Jane Hartley, represented the United States at the rally in his place.