A year after the Charlie Hebdo killings one response stands out: secularism

The people of France are – in the face of millions of refugees, and after two fatal terror attacks in the year – hoping that secularism and equality before law can be respected and enforced, writes Agnieszka Kolakowska.

Signs saying "Je suis Charlie" are held up as crowds gather at Place de la Republique in protest against the killings at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015. Getty Images

by Agnieszka Kolakowska According to an astonishing footnote on page 285 of the second volume of Charles Moore's biography of Margaret Thatcher, President François Mitterrand, when asked by King Fahd for permission to build a mosque in France, is said to have replied: "Your majesty, if you permit one church to be built in Saudi Arabia, I shall let you build a hundred mosques in France." Unimaginable now. Another reason to feel nostalgic for the wily old bird, as some of us, to our own surprise, now do.