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FRANCE - UK

Eiffel Tower switches off lights, flags at half mast for Manchester

Flags on public buildings in France were at half-mast on Wednesday and Paris's Eiffel Tower and Montparnasse Tower turned off their lights on Tuesday night in homage to the victims of the Manchester suicide bombing that killed 22 people and ijured dozens.

The Eiffel Tower with its lights out
The Eiffel Tower with its lights out Tour Eiffel
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French President Emmanuel Macron ordered flags to fly at half mast "in homage to the memory of the victims", Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said.

The two men, along with Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and European Affairs Marielle de Sarnez, signed the book of condolences at the UK's embassy in Paris on Tuesday.

The Eiffel Tower turned off its lights on Tuesday night, as did Paris's tallest building, the Montparnasse Tower.

It was the first such tribute by the Montparnasse skyscraper but not for the Eiffel Tower, which did the same after recent jihadist attacks in London, Saint Petersburg and Stockholm, as well as after the November 2015 attacks in Paris and in support of the people of the Syrian city of Aleppo in December 2016.

Mayor calls for united front against terror

"By targeting Manchester, the terrorists also wanted to attack our shared values, our unflagging attachment to democracy, freedom, humanism and community," Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said in a statement.

"In the face of this blind and persistent threat, cities have the duty to form a united front," she added. To "these children, these young people, their parents who have been struck by terrorism... I want to tell them that Parisians, who have known such an ordeal, are by their sides."

Concerts and other events planned in Paris in the coming days will "of course" go ahead, she said, echoing a call by Culture Minister Françoise Nyssen not to be "guided by fear".

The government decided to step up security at sporting and cultural events in the light of the Manchester attack, which has been claimed by the Islamic State armed group.

The suicide bomber has been identified as Salman Ramadan Abedi, a Mancunian of Libyan descent.

France has been under a state of emergency since the November 2015 Paris attacks.

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