The milIions who marched across France last Sunday, had taken to the streets to express their shock and indignation after the terrorist attacks in which 17 people were killed in Paris, the previous week.

In the most devastating attack, 12 cartoonists, journalists and cleaners were shot in the offices of "Charlie Hebdo" - a satirical magazine with a long record of exposing all prejudices, social, religious, racial or political. It was a bigoted attack on the freedom of expression. In and of itself, this is intolerable, whatever the reasons for it were. The fact that two random attacks followed the first one - against a municipal policewoman and a Jewish grocery store - causing 5 other deaths, only added to the shock.

Those who carried out these attacks are not only enemies of the freedom of expression, but also of the oppressed, on whom they want to impose their own conception of society. In poor countries like Iraq, Syria or Nigeria, their aim is to build repressive states which deprive the oppressed masses of their right to express themselves and to organise.

The terrorist methods used by the Paris attackers who described their acts as a response to the wars waged by the likes of France in Africa and Iraq, are no different from the terrorist methods of the imperialist criminals they claim to be fighting.

Hijacking people's solidarity

The mostly spontaneous rallies held across France on the evening of the first attack, expressed shock and disbelief. But then the politicians barged in with their own agendas, turning this collective solidarity with the victims into a cynical farce.

Right from the beginning, the massive march which gathered more than a million people in the streets of Paris on Sunday 11th was hijacked by criminals, who elbowed their way to the front of it.

Among them was François Hollande himself, the French president who sent troops to the Central African Republic and to Mali so as to protect the mining interests of French capital. Next to him was David Cameron, who supported Blair's occupation of Iraq and the bombing of Libya. And both marched shoulder to shoulder with the butcher of Gaza, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Trailing behind them were some of France's puppet African dictators, such as Omar Bongo of oil-rich Gabon (Total's backyard) and Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, Mali's new strongman, recently propped up into office by the French army. And with them were leading officials from all over the rich world, who have a share of responsibility in the wars which plague the poor countries.

And now, the rich governments will claim the support of public opinion for their criminal policies. Didn't Hollande jump on the opportunity to use the victims as a justification for his wars? And isn't Cameron's sidekick Theresa May, now jumping on the bandwagon by demanding all-encompassing surveillance across Europe?

The camp of the working class

And what next? Let's never forget how Bush used the shock caused by 9/11 to justify his invasion of Afghanistan, nor how both Bush and Blair used the scaremongering built up through their "war on terror" to justify their invasion of Iraq.

Which new bloody military venture might the imperialist vultures think they can embark on today on the strength of this latest public shock? No-one can tell for sure. But better be safe than sorry. We, workers need to remember that they are just as much our enemies as the terrorists who murder journalists as a way of furthering their cause.

We, the working class cannot and should not stand behind governments whose policies amount to large-scale terrorism against the world's poor population. And we have a role of our own to play.

This is true here as much as it is in France. Contrary to the arrogant claims of the British media that this couldn't happen in Britain, we've already seen it all here - with the London tube bombings and the Woolwich attack. Disaffected youth who had been born and bred in Britain, were pushed into terrorism after being marginalised by a combination of economic deprivation and racism.

Our responsibility, that of the working class movement, is to oppose the bloody military ventures of our capitalist rulers. But it is also to give these youth a stake in this society, by engaging in a struggle for a better world, free of capitalist exploitation and all its by-products - poverty across the world as well as racism here - a world in which they can and should play an integral part.

We are all part of the same working class, whatever our origins. And we will only shape the future by being united around our class interests against a capitalist system which threatens the world with barbarism.