The French have been assessing the differences between the murderous episodes that began and look likely to end their year. The Charlie Hebdo killings singled out two features of the Republic, secularism and the Jewish minority; this month’s attacks were an assault on the whole nation January saw a memorable protest march in Paris, days after terrorists killed 17 people at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and a Jewish supermarket. This month, after 130 were gunned down in the capital, the reaction was very different, more muted and anxious.The slogan “Je suis Charlie” quickly went round the world. The rallying cry in Paris this week was the more sober motto emblazoned under a medieval ship on the city’s coat of arms: Fluctuat nec mergitur (“It is buffet