I used to live in France, so the Charlie Hebdo attack doesn’t seem far away. And coupled with the horror of the attack itself it looks as if the response (or, rather, the reaction) will be predictably bad too.

There is, as Tom Robinson sang in 1970s and 1980s Britain, “panic at the county hall” – and in the French government, and here, there and every place where politicians, police officers and hack journalists gather.

What we can be pretty sure of is that there will be an open season on Muslims, in France and across Europe, including the UK. In France Muslims already experience Islamophobic attacks, suffer social and economic inequality and are subject to discrimination. Ethnic minorities are not officially recognised in France (even if you’ve managed to become a French citizen, the message is “Forget where you came from: you’re French, and only French, now”). But the police, on the other hand, “recognise” your ethnic status so that they can stop you, search you and arrest you at the drop of a chapeau. In the Charlie Hebdo case there have been several arrests already, including an 18-year-old who “handed himself in”, according to The Guardian, though the reason he went to the police was apparently that he saw his name as a suspect on the social media and wanted to make it clear he was at school at the time of the attack and had nothing to do with it. As for the press, a number of gun incidents around the time of the shootings are being subtly linked with the Charlie Hebdo attack, while at the same time claiming that no link is intended.

One result of the Charlie Hebdo killings is that there have already been attacks on mosques and individuals across France. The far-right Front National led by Marine Le Pen, with its record of racist attacks, will seek to gain from the situation. And the mainstream right will keep up with their rhetoric, and form electoral pacts with them, and the mainstream left will be cowards.

Charlie Hebdo is against racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia. If “We are Charlie Hebdo” in the UK, let’s say that too and not join in the panic.