This was democracy at its finest. These were not demos ‘against’. They were ‘for’. For freedom, for free speech, for a free press

AT MIDDAY the mighty bells of Notre Dame tolled in the minute’s silence for those slain in the city offices of Charlie Hebdo. Around me, from every village within hearing distance, much simpler bells broke in with their own distinct peals.

They would have rung in the Angelus at this time anyway, although few pause in the old way now, to think of their work and their God. But this day, the day after, the tone was subtly altered and it was the death knell; the slow, dreaded sound accompanying the flight of the soul and the interring of the shell it so briefly inhabited. France was in national mourning. And so were we. In Lavit, just before noon, the remaining shops shut their doors. The mayor had called for our presence. Hastily made Je Suis Charlie posters were pinned in the open Halle and from the farmhouses and out of the townhouses, my neighbours emerged.

Visibly shocked, visibly in need of either comfort or reassurance, in a display of rare national, not local, unity. Some clutched pencils – the simple tool, the new symbol, of freedom of thought. Incongruous in this farming community but somehow so, so right.

Once again in its turbulent history, France was under attack. This time from within.

In the tabac earlier, surrounded by the powerful front pages of our press, I had asked the owner how many locals “took” the satirical magazine.

“None,” she said. “Never. But today nous sommes tous Charlie.”

To hear her, in this backwoods, take up the chant, the plural of #jeSuisCharlie that had defiantly spun the globe within hours of the murders, was profoundly moving.

And unexpected. As, though it shouldn’t have been, was the gathering in the market square. I expected the thousands that thronged nearby Toulouse and all the major cities in France last night.

When trouble or anger comes, the French move to an old revolutionary beat and head for the open heartlands of power – the main squares. But I didn’t expect it here among the self-contained, inward-looking fruit fields of the south.

Satire and niche magazines do not fit easily into our insular world. In La France Profonde the focus is on parish politics; the eyes on the hundred little giveaway signs of a neighbour on the rise; the gossip often sly and vindictive.

Paris is far more than just 700km away – it is another country, whose people are often derided as intellectuals, snobs, philosophers ... cartoonists. Not now. Yesterday our world shifted in a way that is not yet clear but was palpable in that gathering.

The mood is not ugly – yet. The call for vengeance has not been heard – yet.

For now there is disbelief, incomprehension, and undeniably, fear. Fear is evident in the radio phone-ins, but the biggest outpouring is coming from the country’s Muslim population, the largest in Europe.

They worry that the killers are seen as representatives rather than the radicalised outcasts recruited from the stifling ghettos of the cities. Fear that equally disaffected “pure” French youth will turn their inadequacies and loathing on to other innocent, easily identifiable targets. That anxiety is not misplaced. As I have reported before, there is something very old and very ominous stirring in France; indeed in most of Europe. Something that plays to the deep layer of racism that lies below the surface chant of Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.

Increasing anti-Semitic attacks have seen a steady movement of Jews deserting the country. The Roms are despised and herded from their temporary settlements in their wanderings across the continent.

But it is the “musulman” that the far right and Le Pen now target with their slurs and spite. The musulmen who are to blame for all the ills in the world.

Many of the rural communities around me voted in huge, disturbing numbers for the Front National at the last municipal elections. But they take a broad brush of distrust and dislike, applying it equally to all those not born and bred here. In their defence I will simply say, it’s a country “thing”.

It almost goes without saying that the next few weeks and months will be critical in how the country tackles the enemy within. Before the Hebdo attack, several other planned atrocities had been foiled, we are now told.

We’ve grown used to seeing larger numbers of armed police and army around the vulnerable spots in our cities; settled into the knowledge that we’ve been on high alert since before Christmas. But as I said earlier, something shifted, something was shunted with the brutality seen in the capital city.

It’s too soon to get a grip on yet, and I may be so, so wrong. But for me the shift was towards hope – not nihilism.

To watch those banners and pencils raised upwards in silent defiance; to see the words “not afraid” held up towards the world’s cameras; to witness even little Lavit’s gesture, was to see democracy at its finest.

For these were not demonstrations “against”. These were “for”. For freedom, for free speech, for a free, unfettered press.

And a clear message that no government, no side and no ideology will ever be allowed to take that away again from this country.