A steady stream of Canberrans were adding their flowers on Sunday to a mix of tributes, flickering candles, and written messages like the French national motto "Liberty, equality and fraternity" .

Remi Sueur says a workmate phoned him of the attacks in Parish on Friday night, sending him to a television, while his wife Murielle received a telephone call from her mother. The couple attended the embassy on Sunday afternoon with their children Antoine and Lana.

Mr Sueur, who comes from the Champagne region about an hour from Paris, arrived in Canberra seven years ago and says being in another country, thinking of kin back at home does not help deal with the tragedy.

"The same thing could happen in Sydney. It is awful happening in a town we know so well," he said.

Mrs Helene Ahlberger, who left flowers at the embassy's gates, studied in Paris, and as a student lived in Rue Alibert, in the 10th district, one of the streets where Le Petit Cambodge restaurant is located, and where the attacks began with the killing of 14 people.

"It was like looking at the street I knew, transported in Beirut or somewhere. It is very emotional for me to see it," said Mrs Ahlberger.

"It is something very personal because I have lived there, it was my daily life, working out from my apartment there, going down to the cafe there. It is even stronger when you have lived there."

The wife of Swedish Ambassador to Australia Par Ahlberger, Helene Ahlberger, said having diplomatic status meant she always thought about danger.

"But it is the personal memories of being a student, of being a person that could have been targeted. It was a long time ago of course, but I really can relate to those people who were sitting in the cafes and walking in the streets on that November night."

People were out and about in Yarralumla, mowing nature strips, or joining a walk through wild flowers in nearby Stirling Park, while an officer in an Australian Federal Police car parked near the Embassy of France, observed the respectful trickle of people showing their grief and support for another tragedy abroad.

Parliament House glowed in blue, white and red from 8pm as a mark of solidarity with France. Other buildings - including the National Carillon and Telstra Tower - were also lit up.

In a joint statement from Senate president Stephen Parry and House of Representatives speaker Tony Smith, the pair said they had met with a delegation from the French Senate on the eve of Remembrance Day to "reflect on our close ties that were forged on French soil nearly a century ago in the First World War".

"Again, in the wake of this horrific terrorist attack, the Parliaments of our two nations resolve that our mutual commitment to the liberty of free peoples will never be diminished."