TOLERANCE has always struck me as an honest virtue. Yet in the wake of what happened in Paris during the attack on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, is tolerance enough or is it merely a spot of namby-pamby liberal hopefulness?

Mostly in this country, as in France, we value freedom of expression and opinion.

If people say things we dislike, we are free to disagree and free to say so.

We will never be able to define fully what is offensive or precisely pin it down, despite certain views being against the law. If we live in a free society, we risk being offended by other people’s opinions – that’s the way a free society should work, allowing us to complain, shout back, rant and rave, but never to pick up a gun.

Anyone who has written a column for a while knows that honestly put thoughts have a way of causing upset, sometimes beyond what the writer intended.

This can be because someone dislikes seeing in print an opinion with which they disagree; and sometimes in their fury, they don’t exactly read what has been written.

Freedom of the press is of unshakeable importance, yet there is still a problem, not with the freedom but with the way the press can sometimes flourish this as an unquestionable right.

Perhaps freedom of expression is a better way to put it, because this implies that this freedom belongs to everyone and not only to journalists.

If such freedom is a right, as it is and should be, then it does come with responsibility too. Some commentators have said that in publishing satirical cartoons portraying the prophet, Charlie Hebdo was wielding its pen with a reckless lack of respect to Muslims.

There may be something in this, but we cannot overlook the horror of what happened. Twelve people died on the Wednesday, a female police officer was killed the following day and then four people were killed in a kosher supermarket.

Such a murderous trail, so many deaths: no wonder France and the world was horrified and then united in a show of opposition.

The scenes on Sunday were remarkable, not only the estimated two million people who took to the streets of Paris, but also the sombre phalanx of world leaders who joined the march – some of whom cried press freedom, while conveniently overlooking their own restrictive behaviour at home (Egypt, Russia, Turkey, Algeria and the United Arab Emirates were singled out by Reporters Without Borders).

The brothers at the heart of this cold mayhem, Chérif and Said Kouachi, may have claimed that they acted in defence of their faith, but surely no religion demands such slaughter from its followers.

Sadly, tragically, the fatally unhinged psychopathic actions of these brothers and their associates allow the rabble-rousers on the far right to throw fuel on the sort of anti-Islam bonfire they love to ignite.

Those who jump in and hijack such tragic events to suit their own agenda risk looking foolish and opportunistic. Nigel Farage, the leader of Ukip, was blaming multiculturalism for what had happened while the bodies were still warm – an eagerness to condemn that earned a welcome rebuke from David Cameron.

It is odd the way that we think of prime ministers having a ‘good’ crisis, but even those of us who are a long way from membership of the David Cameron fan club should accept that he copes well at such times.

There is something blandly reassuring about the way he conducts himself, in that he knows what is required of him and offers it up without flap or fuss.

He might not say much, but he says what is needed.

So many issues are stirred up by the Paris terror attacks, and to return to my starting point, tolerance is an important virtue.

Yet how do we balance our tolerance against the screaming intolerance of those who would do us harm?

There is no easy answer to that, but the massed ranks of marchers in Paris, elsewhere in France and around the world at least showed that people were prepared to go out and make a physical statement and to express their sorrow at what had happened. It was the opposite of apathy and it was good to witness.