World leaders – forty of them (French station BFM said 44) – joined the people in Paris, including French President Francois Hollande, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. The Ukraine sent President Petro Poroshenko and Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

Though French President Holland asked them not to, according to Haaretz, even Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put aside their differences long enough to join in common purpose in a march down Boulevard Voltaire.

But not President Barack Obama. It was not a secret or a surprise, since Agence France-Presse had reported he would not be there, and even the Russian news agency, Tass, had reportedhe would be absent.

It is not clear why he did not attend, whether it was security concerns (critics point out other world leaders were able to get around this concern) or for some other reason. WhiteHouse.gov shows no public schedule for the president on Sunday.

Secretary of State John Kerry was in India for a trade conference, meeting with another absent world leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the White House has not explained President Obama’s absence, or that of Vice President Joe Biden. Attorney General Eric Holder was in Paris and attending security meetings as well as taping interviews for American news shows,excluding Fox News.

Credit: politicususa.com