Vital lessons to learn from Paris horror

AFTER the terror, the fear and the anger, the time for thought has arrived. What have we learned from the murders in Paris? What can we do to safeguard ourselves from more horrors of this kind?

There is no point rushing to any kind of judgment. The only result of that would be unintended consequences.

But we do know some things already. French security organs failed in vigilance. Two of the Paris killers were already very much known to the authorities. There are cross-border connections with militants in this country and clear links with the Yemen, a well-known cauldron of terrorism.

And there are specific lessons to be learned here about continued surveillance of those who have already broken cover, who travel to certain places, who have contact with particular mosques. It should never cease. It is an indispensable use of resources.

It is less hard to be sure how organised or co-ordinated these attacks were. The claims of the killers, predominantly criminal drifters and drug abusers, cannot necessarily be taken as true without investigation.

As well as seeking such patterns, oldfashioned plodding policing of this unhappy layer of our society (which exists just as much in Britain as it does in France) might help prevent these events in future.

Close knowledge of areas and people, noting and recording minor changes in behaviour, might be an effective way of knowing when danger is brewing. Especially, we need to know how and where such people obtain their guns and ammunition – the clearest warning of trouble to come.

Intelligence of both kinds, not emotion or rhetoric, or yet more restrictions on the liberty and privacy of millions of innocent people, is the best practical answer.