“They want to silence us. And we won't let them. We will never let them.”

The singer has broken down while paying tribute to the victims.

It’s the moment one of the world’s most recognised entertainers stopped to remember the events of Paris.

The moment Madonna broke into tears as she delivered a heartfelt speech about the massacre in the French capital.

The 57-year old was in Stockholm, Sweden, as part of her Rebel Heart tour when stopped to talk to the audience about what a difficult decision it had been to perform just days after the horrific attacks that saw 129 people die.

She told the crowd she decided to carry on with her concert because she wanted to stand up to the barbaric terrorists, and not let them stop anyone doing “what they love.”

In a video of her tribute, uploaded to social media by a concert goer she said:

“It has been very hard for me to get through the show until this point. ”

“So I need to take this moment to acknowledge the tragedy – the tragic killings, assassinations, and the senseless ending of precious life that occurred last night in Paris.

“Because, in many ways, I feel torn. Like, why are we up here dancing and having fun when people are crying over the loss of their loved ones?

“However, that is exactly what these people want to do. They want to shut us up, they want to silence us. And we won’t let them. We will never let them.”

“All of the places where people were killed were places where people were having fun, where people were enjoying themselves.

“Eating in restaurants, dancing, singing, watching a soccer match. These are freedoms that we take for granted, of course, and we must not – but they’re freedoms that we deserve – we work hard, we deserve to have fun.

Watch Madonna’s powerful speech:

Dabbing at her eyes with a tissue given to her by a member of the audience she said:

“There are people who have no respect for human life, and there are people that do atrocious, degrading and unforgivable things to human beings,” Madonna said during her six-minute speech.

“But we will never, ever, ever change this world that we live in if we do not change ourselves. If we do not change the way we treat one another on a daily basis.

The way we change the world is that we change the way we treat one another on a daily basis, in the simplest ways.

We must start treating every human being with dignity and respect, and this is the only thing that will change the world.”

Following a long moment of silence for those killed in the Paris attacks, Madonna then delivered an acoustic version of “Like a Prayer.”

“So, here’s what I know how to do, and I hope you will all join me, and we will all sing this prayer together.”

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Man plays ‘Imagine’ outside Bataclan theatre in moving Paris tribute.