Meeting between Hollande and Merkel postponed: official

[PARIS] A meeting between French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel planned in Strasbourg Sunday has been postponed after a series of attacks in Paris, said a spokesman for European parliament president Martin Schulz.

Armin Machmer, the spokesman for Mr Schulz, who organised the meeting, said it has been delayed "because of the events" in France, where twin hostage dramas were playing out in the wake of the massacre Wednesday of 12 people at Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly.

The leaders had been due to hold a meeting to "discuss the future of Europe" and the relationship between France and Germany.

France has been gripped by fear in an already three-day drama that began when two gunmen stormed an editorial meeting at the satirical magazine and mowed down some of the nation's best-known cartoonists and two police officers.

A day later a gunman shot dead a policewoman and injured another person south of Paris.

He has now been identified as Amedy Coulibaly, 32, who is thought to be the gunman who on Friday was holding at least five people hostage at a Jewish supermarket after a shootout in which a source told AFP two people were killed.

It has also emerged from sources close to the investigation that Coulibaly was an acquaintance of massacre suspect Cherif Kouachi who was holed up in a separate hostage drama with his brother Said.

AFP