European Union Foreign Affairs Head Catherine Ashton. Photo: wiki commons.

European Union Foreign Affairs Chief Catherine Ashton spoke to Palestinian children on Monday, comparing the  shooting at a Jewish School in France, in which four were murdered today, and the 2011 massacre in Norway in which 77 were killed with the struggle of Palestinian children.

“Against all the odds, they continue to learn, to work, to dream and aspire to a better future. And the days when we remember young people who have been killed in all sorts of terrible circumstances – the Belgian children having lost their lives in a terrible tragedy and when we think of what happened in Toulouse today, when we remember what happened in Norway a year ago, when we know what is happening in Syria, when we see what is happening in Gaza and in different parts of the world – we remember young people and children who lose their lives,” she said.

Following her statement that the EU will do everything in it’s power “to try and meet circumstances for the completion of the Middle East Peace Process,” Ashton praised the young people in attendance for taking a leadership role.

“Here are young people who are asking not to be leaders of the future, but to be taken seriously as leaders of today. And it is to them that we should look and to them we should listen and it is to them that I pay tribute,” she said.