Charged-particle multiplicity at LHC energies

<!--HTML--><p class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="FR"><font size="3" face="Consolas">The talk presents the measurement of the pseudorapidity density and the multiplicity distribution with ALICE at the achieved LHC energies of 0.9 and 2.36 TeV.</font></span></p><p class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="FR"><font size="3" face="Consolas">An overview about multiplicity measurements prior to LHC is given and the related theoretical concepts are briefly discussed.</font></span></p><p class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="FR"><font size="3" face="Consolas">The analysis procedure is presented and the systematic uncertainties are detailed. The applied acceptance corrections and the treatment of diffraction are discussed.</font></span></p><p class="MsoPlainText" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><span lang="FR"><font size="3" face="Consolas">The results are compared with model predictions. The validity of KNO scaling in restricted phase space regions is revisited.</font></span></p><p> </p>