Following three days of shootings and hostage-takings, President Francois Hollande called on the French to take to the streets of Paris this weekend to defy terror and uphold freedom.

I am calling on all the French to come out together on Sunday to carry the values of democracy, freedom and pluralism that we all value and that Europe in some ways represents,” Hollande said in a live television broadcast marking the end of three days of violence. “We will come through this ordeal stronger.”

European leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, Spain’s Mariano Rajoy and Italy’s Matteo Renzi have confirmed plans to come to Paris to show their solidarity with the French people. Marches are planned in the capital and cities and towns across the country following the worst violence in half a century, which left more than a dozen dead including 12 people in the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

“A number of heads of state and government from around the world have expressed their solidarity,” Hollande said today. “Some have said they will be there at the big gathering on Sunday and I will be there with them.”

The marches will be a way to denounce racism and anti-Semitism, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in a separate television interview. European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker, European President Donald Tusk and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg will also attend.

David Fuller's view

Good move.  This is an appropriate, unifying response.