Kerry in Paris: 'Our hearts are with you'

Secretary of State John Kerry, right, is embraced by French President Francois Hollande upon arrival at Elysee Palace in Paris on Jan. 16, 2015.(Photo: Rick Wilking, AP)sU.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said he was coming to France to "share a big hug with Paris," embraced President Francois Hollande Monday and visited the sites of two recent terror attacks that have rocked the country."I think you know that you have the full and heartfelt condolences of the American people and I know you know that we share the pain and the horror of everything that you went through," he told Hollande. "Our hearts are with you."To underscore his message, Kerry brought along singer James Taylor to sign his song, "You've Got a Friend," which received a rousing applause from the audience.Hollande said the French people "were the victims of an exceptional terrorist attack. We must therefore together find the necessary response."Kerry is the highest-level U.S. visitor to Paris since the attacks by terrorists on the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and on a kosher supermarket in Paris left 17 people dead. The three gunmen who mounted the two separate attacks were killed by security forces.Kerry's visit comes a week after the Obama administration acknowledged that it should have sent a higher-level representative to a unity rally against terrorism that drew some 40 heads of state and millions of people to central Paris.Later Friday, Kerry and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius laid a wreath at the Hyper Cacher kosher market, one of the two sites attacked last week. They also spoke briefly with Joel Mergui, the head of France's Rabbinical Council, before visiting a memorial outside the Charlie Hebdo offices.The two gunmen, Chérif and Said Kouachi, proclaimed at the time of the attack that they were avenging the newspaper's publication of cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed. The third gunman, Amedy Coulibaly. who was an associate of the Kouachi brothers, took over the supermarket, killing four people.The secretary, joined by US Ambassador to France Jane Hartley, walked the short distance from the Charlie Hebdo offices to place flowers at the site where a Paris police officer was killed by the gunmen.In the wake of the terrorist outbreak, France has gone on high-alert. Police evacuated a major train station in the city after a bomb threat as Kerry's motorcade sped from site to site.in a related development, Belgium police on Thursday night killed two people and arrested a third in what a judge said was a last-minute disruption of a major impending attack.Eric Van der Sypt, a Belgian judge, said that the suspects intended to kill police on the streets or in their offices. As a precaution, Jewish schools in Belgium have been ordered closed.Around 300 Belgian residents have gone to fight with extremist Islamic formations in Syria and some are thought to have returned home to wage jihad.In Germany, two men were arrested Friday in Berlin following a series of anti-terror raids. Police there said the operation was part of a long-running investigation into suspects with links to extremism.Contributing: Associated PressEurope anti-terrorism raids lead to dozens of arrestsJan 16, 2015