Charlie Hebdo magazine attack: vigils held as French hunt suspects – as it happened

We’re going to close this live blog and pick up our live coverage out of Australia. Click here for a summary of the latest developments.

#JeSuisCharlie was tweeted millions of times by Wednesday evening in Paris.

Hugo Clément, a journalist from France 2 who is in Reims, about 150 kilometers east of Paris, tweets that a raid operation is under way.

“Can’t say more because of security, but I confirm the operation at Reims is not yet finished”, he tweeted.

We’ve been unable to this point to obtain further confirmation of the report of arrests carried earlier in this blog. French officials, including the Paris deputy mayor, have issued contradictory statements on the question. Current statements do not suggest arrests have happened.

A police spokesperson had confirmed that the suspects had been arrested as reported by Libération newspaper. He added a location of the supposed arrests. However, this was denied by the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve.

The front page of tomorrow’s Guardian:

The White House has distributed a description of President Obama’s call with French President Hollande earlier Wednesday. Obama “offered the resources of the United States” to bring the perpetrators to justice:

(h/t @kaylaepstein)

In an interview with France Inter radio, the former Charlie Hebdo publisher Phillipe Val said: ‘I’ve lost all of my friends today.’

In a moving tribute to his slain former colleagues, Val, who has also been director of France Inter, said:

“They were so alive, they loved to make people happy, to make them laugh, to give them generous ideas. They were very good people. They were the best among us, as those who make us laugh, who are for liberty ... They were assassinated, it is an insufferable butchery.

“We cannot let silence set in, we need help. We all need to band together against this horror. Terror must not prevent joy, must not prevent our ability to live, freedom, expression – I’m going to use stupid words – democracy, after all this is what is at stake. It is this kind of fraternity that allows us to live. We cannot allow this, this is an act of war. It might be good if tomorrow, all newspapers were called Charlie Hebdo. If we titled them all Charlie Hebdo. If all of France was Charlie Hebdo. It would show that we are not okay with this. That we will never let stop laughing. We will never let liberty be extinguished.”

(translated from French by @rayajalabi)

Read the full interview in French here.

A spokesman for the French police tells the Guardian’s Kim Willsher in Paris that authorities have arrested three suspects in the Charlie Hebdo attack. [See update below: Current statements do not suggest arrests have happened.]

However Kim points out that the interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, addressed the media not long ago and did not mention arrests.

UPDATE 6pm ET: We’ve been unable to this point to obtain further confirmation of the report of arrests carried earlier in this blog. French officials, including the Paris deputy mayor, have issued contradictory statements on the question. Current statements do not suggest arrests have happened. Read more here.

Front pages from around the world:

And here’s Libération, “we are all Charlie”:

(thx @claire_phipps)

Le Monde reports that President Hollande will host a meeting with former President Nicolas Sarkozy tomorrow morning at 9.30am.

Via GuardianWitness: Here is a further selection of photos and words from #CharlieHebdo vigils submitted through GuardianWitness. If you’re at the scene, we invite you to add your reportage here.

The Guardian’s Ben Quinn (@benquinn75) has been speaking with French expatriates at the gathering at Trafalgar Square.

“In one the largest vigils outside of France, around 2,000 French citizens and others gathered in Trafalgar Square, London – sometimes dubbed Frances’s “sixth largest city” on account of the number of expats living there,” Ben writes:

In silence, they shed tears, joined in a chorus of the marsellaise and held previous covers of Charlie Hedbo. Some just held up pens and pencils, which were eventually left in the middle of the gathering, which had been quickly organised earlier in the day on Facebook without any apparent leadership.

“We’re here because of freedom of the press and freedom of expression generally, but we’re also here because we’re sad,” said Arnaud Vervoitte, a Frenchman who has lived in the UK in the UK for 21 and works with a youth organiation in London.

In common with others, he also cited fears of a right-led backlash in his homeland.

“If the reports are accurate then I am scared that it is going to feed into more Far Right politics which have been a massive issue in France and we have already seen the Front National using the issue without evening knowing the details.”

Another French expat, Marie Proffit, added: “We are shocked. We know that there should be a place for satirical press in Europe. “We’re also sure though that this was not about muslim people – it was about some really really extreme people.”

“I am very worried about what might happen next – that the Front National will try to use this to their advantage. It doesn’t represent France at all.”

Others in the crowd included Aykut Mercan, a Turkish London, who was holding a placard in Turkish saying: “Je Suis Charlie Hepimiz”. He said: “I’m here to support Freedom of Speech. What happened in Paris was shocking and hard to understand really. It wasn’t in my name.”

Metro News in France is reporting that French police have identified the attackers.

Le Monde tweets that it has confirmed with police sources that the three suspects have been identified.

The French reports do not include names. More details to come.

Élysée palace tweets a photo of Hollande taking a call from Obama:

The Guardian’s Alexandra Topping is at the gathering in Trafalgar Square. “There was an eerie quiet as hundreds, if not thousands, of people gathered to show their solidarity with France and the victims of the Charlie Hebdo attack,” she writes:

Of the hushed voices that you could hear were many young French people, suddenly feeling a long way from home.

Among them was Camille Rousseau, a 23-year-old student holding up her drawing of some of the cartoonists who were killed in the attack. “One of our principal values is the right to express ourselves, it is a core value of the republic,” she said.

Her friend Heloise Hubert, 20, held a pen aloft. “We feel extremely close to what happened. It happened in Paris but it could have easily happened here.”

As the crowd continued to grow in the cold night air, the strains of The Marseillaise could be heard as people began to sing.

Via Guardian Witness, a photo of a gathering outside Lyon City Hall:

We invite you to share your photos and videos of vigils marking the Charlie Hebdo attack on Guardian Witness here.

The Guardian’s Ben Quinn is at a vigil in Trafalgar Square: