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White House chief of staff: Paris unity march snub 'rests on me'
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President Barack Obama’s chief of staff on Tuesday took responsibility for not sending a top US official to a Paris unity march after deadly Islamic militant attacks in the French capital earlier this month.
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Denis McDonough said in a television interview that it was his decision not to send the president or a high-level American representative to the 11 January march, where the US absence drew criticism.
“We regret we didn’t send someone more senior than our ambassador, that rests on me. That’s my job,” he said, speaking on NBC’s Today program.
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Related: John Kerry declares ‘profound emotion’ for France in Paris address
At the march, 44 foreign dignitaries joined the French president, François Hollande, in leading more than a million people through Paris in a show of solidarity after Islamist militants killed 17 people in three days of attacks in the city.
The United States was represented by its ambassador to France, Jane Hartley.
Spokesman Josh Earnest has admitted the White House made a mistake and said that Obama would have liked to attend. But McDonough’s admission on Tuesday is the first time someone in the administration has taken the blame for the incident.
Critics, including Republican lawmakers and US media outlets, have blasted the lack of a top American official at the unity march that featured leaders from Britain, Germany and Israel walking arm-in-arm.
US administration officials have said security requirements were a major reason behind not sending Obama or the vice-president, Joe Biden, to Paris, adding that their security needs can be distracting from such events.
McDonough said he especially regretted the decision because the attention it drew “covered up and obfuscated the very good progress that our intelligence agencies, our law enforcement agencies” have made in confronting security threats as well as US cooperation with the French and other European allies.
“That’s what we ought to be focused on, but unfortunately the decisions I made obfuscated that effort. We’re going to continue make sure we’re focused on that and working with our friends to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again,” he told NBC.
Criticism about the decision has not come from official channels in France, where authorities have welcomed the support of US officials. On Friday the US secretary of state, John Kerry, who speaks fluent French, visited Paris to offer condolences.
