Over 700,000 rally in France

(MENAFN- The Peninsula) More than 700,000 people defiantly rallied throughout France yesterday in solidarity with victims of this week's Islamist attacks, on the eve of a march in Paris expected to dwarf that figure.

The massive rallies are in tribute to the 17 victims of the three-day killing spree, and security forces were mapping out a major deployment aimed at preventing fresh violence.

World leaders including British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were set to attend today's march in support of France, badly shaken by the violence. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls predicted that millions of people would turn out today to honour the dead and decry the fundamentalist attacks.

Security levels were kept at France's highest level, with the girlfriend of one of three gunmen killed in a fiery climax to twin hostage dramas on Friday still on the loose. But a police source revealed that 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, the "armed and dangerous" partner of Amedy Coulibaly, was not in France at the time of the killings. Boumeddiene was likely in Turkey then, an anonymous source said. The source said investigators were checking whether she was now in Syria.