PARIS
Leaders from all over the world will take part in a unity march in Paris to pay tribute to the victims of deadly attacks in France that left 17 people dead.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu left for Paris Sunday morning to join French President Francois Hollande at the march.
Hollande will rally alongside his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy, whom he defeated in the presidential election in 2012, in a rare show of unity between the two rivals.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, European Council President Donald Tusk, British, Italian and Spanish prime ministers are also expected at the event.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will also head a Russian delegation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will also be present. Jordan’s King Abdullah is also expected.
Ahead of the rally, an international meeting on fighting terrorism began at the French interior ministry.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve received U.S. Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and interior ministers of Germany, England, Spain, Italy and Poland.
European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship Dimitris Avramopoulos was also present at the meeting along with EU Counter-terrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove.
Security at the rally is expected to be water tight. The French interior minister said more than 5,500 police and military personnel would be posted to provide protection to the millions at the rally.
Cazeneuve said 24 units of the national reserve, and public order representatives, would also be present.
A special unit of 150 civil police officers would also guard the visiting dignitaries. Sharpshooters on roof tops would also be posted.
More than a million people are expected to converge on central Paris as part of the "Republican march."
A number of French political parties, unions, associations and religious institutions are also planning to join the march.
However, Marine Le Pen, head of the National Front, denounced what she called the "exclusion" of her party from the march.
The National Front leader had asked for an official invitation by Prime Minister Manuel Valls, which never came.
Tens of thousands of people also took part in rallies across France Saturday. Le Figaro reported that 20,000 people in Orleans, north-central France, 35,000 in Pau , southwestern France, and 23,000 in Nice, southeast France, and 80,000 in Toulouse, southwestern France attended the rallies.
All three suspected gunmen, who were involved in the worst terror attacks France saw in decades, were killed Friday, according to authorities.
The terror alert, however, remains at its highest level in Paris.
