Well, the nice thing is that Je Suis Parisienne is a bit more chic than Je Suis Charlie when it comes to Making a Stand slogans, though in my case there is the qualifier – if only. There’s something enormously poignant about mass murder in a city where the arts of elegance are esteemed so highly. It makes the blood and terror and indignity so much more incongruous, though the city has, of course, seen revolution and terror before.
We can of course waste our breath talking about the need to take the fight to the terrorists, and I’m all for that. (On the ill wind principle, this should make Theresa May’s efforts to get the surveillance bill through parliament a complete breeze.) But in practical terms you know what we should be doing at a time when BA and Eurostar are offering passengers the chance to cancel their trips to Paris? We should be making plans, pronto, to visit Paris ourselves. There’s only one way to show solidarity and that’s to go there for a weekend, eat in the best restaurants and buy our Christmas presents there. And I need hardly say the shopping there is like nowhere else. I only wish it were more of a sacrifice, this symbolic gesture, but, you know, there’s no reason why we can’t have a lovely time while we’re flicking two fingers at homicidal Islamism.
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