However I find the quiet, dignified, response of the people of France and elsewhere deeply humbling. The coming together of people of all races, religions, creeds, and backgrounds, in vigils to remember and honour the dead, uphold the principles of freedom of speech.
It's also worth remembering that the first victim of this atrocity was a Muslim policeman defending his society, its values and his fellow countrymen. In short everything these criminals despised.
Voltaire may have never actually said "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall in her biography of Voltaire) but now more than ever we need to up-hold that principle. To recognise that each and every one of us has the right to our opinion and that the other 7 billion people on the planet have the right to question, challenge, ridicule and satirise it.
Because the minute we lose sight of that fundamental principle the world we live in will become a very dark and totalitarian place indeed.