monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Only 60 "heads of state" attended. Trump wasn't the only leader to snub the event.

the Paris Peace Forum was part of that remembrance

Besides Trump ... whom do you mean?

Does it matter?

Not surprised that those leaders who don't want to be part of the push for a one world "economy" chose not to attend.

Here's a clue, Walter; list those who did attend, and we'll work backwards from that list.

105 countries invited, 60 of which have confirmed their attendance

Walter wrote:

the Paris Peace Forum

As detailed above, it's not about peace at all; it's a push for corporate globalism. Not surprised that those leaders who don't want to be part of the push for a one world "economy" chose not to attend.

(...)

The most important ingredient of a functioning democracy, Frances McCall Rosenbluth and Ian Shapiro argue, in “Responsible Parties: Saving Democracy from Itself” (Yale), is strong political parties that can keep their rank-and-file members in check. In a successful political system, the authors say, two big parties compete for popular support by developing and implementing a cohesive platform. Unlike individual candidates, who might stay in power for only a few years, such parties have a vested interest in maintaining a good reputation over the course of decades. And unlike political newcomers, who may have little sense of what governments can actually achieve, they have the experience and the financial resources to develop effective proposals for political reform. Thanks to “long-view horizons” and “incentives to invest in relevant information about the effects of policy choices,” strong parties are more likely to promote the interests of the general public.

The kind of reform encouraged by the McGovern-Fraser Commission, and copied by the Republican Party, undercuts both of these functions. The activists who are now in charge, Rosenbluth and Shapiro contend, simply don’t have the expertise to construct a coherent policy program. Because they don’t have a stake in the long-term future of the Party, they are more liable to make irresponsible promises. And, since primaries and caucuses are much more likely to recruit from the political extremes, their elevation has actually made parties less responsive to the views of ordinary citizens. All in all, Rosenbluth and Shapiro argue, the efforts to increase voters’ direct control over political parties “turn out to be the political equivalent of bloodletting. Either they have no impact on the malady they are meant to address or—more often—they make it worse. Rebuilding well-functioning democracies means reversing this trend.”

(...)

Some political systems suffer because they are moated from popular sentiment. Many autocrats, for example, suppress the mechanisms that would allow them to find out the true thoughts and concerns of their citizens. The malady that has befallen the United States is the opposite—what Rosenbluth and Shapiro term a “lack of unresponsiveness.”

It is, then, understandable that the authors seek to mend America’s broken institutions by making it easier for legislators to shut the people out—at least a little bit, from time to time. Making it harder for activists to launch primary challenges against incumbents in safe districts, for instance, really would make it easier for Congress to fulfill its constitutional duty of checking an errant executive. There is even a principled case for questioning just how democratic primaries and caucuses actually are. Only around a quarter of eligible voters participated in the heated 2016 Presidential primaries, with only about an eighth supporting either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Many primaries for less important offices draw even fewer voters. Is a system in which public servants are selected by a highly unrepresentative fraction of the over-all population especially democratic?

(...)