Liberty, equality, fraternity may be the national motto of France but these are also the very values that we in the Western world hold dearest. These three words succinctly define what we are and what we stand for.

And when someone attacks those values, it is the duty of the whole of the Western world to rise up, and rise up we must against the kind of villainy witnessed on the streets of Paris on Friday night.

These three words that speak so much are the very building blocks of our democracies and they are here to stay. We will not be swayed, we will not flinch and we will not be dissuaded in any way from those values. 

And that is exactly what those who perpetrated Friday night's heinous attacks in Paris hate so much.

Friday's atrocities were not only committed against France, Europe, and the Western world. They were an attack against all of humanity, and as such those who committed those crimes against humanity do not deserve to bear the label of 'human'.

The retribution for the Paris attacks must be immediate and it must send a loud and clear message that such deeds will not be permitted - on European soil or on any other soil for that matter.

This vile attack against humanity deserves not only a French, European or Western response - it warrants a truly global response.  The blight that is the Islamic State must be stamped out once and for all with a truly concerted global effort.

We have watched the atrocities unfold on a near daily basis from a comfortable distance on our television screens. We have been shocked and we have shed tears many times when witnessing the abysmal levels these terrorists sink to in their twisted campaigns in Syria and Iraq.

Those atrocities are now too close for comfort and, if the reaction of the French government and world leaders is anything to go by, this has been the wake-up call that will spur the Western world and its military might into real action.

It is, however, shameful that we are only bent on taking action now that the menace has reached our shores and cities. The world must now be brought together to stamp out the Islamic State once and for all. And if there is any part whatsoever for Malta to play in all this, we should seriously consider whether our constitutional neutrality applies in this context. 

There can be no neutrality in this fight that is coming.

Leaders from the world's largest industrial and emerging economies gather today and tomorrow in Turkey - a nation which is itself a crossroads for both Islamic extremists and hundreds of thousands of people fleeing those same extremists in their own homelands - for a meeting of the G20.

The Islamic State group is at the top of nearly the entire G20's hit list. It is the target of airstrikes by the US and its allies as well as Russia.  The Islamic State has been a major security concern and that concern is all the greater after Paris.

The group recently claimed responsibility for a twin suicide bombing in Beirut on Thursday and is blamed for two similar bombings in Turkey that killed some 130 people in July and October. A faction of the group has also claimed responsibility for the downing of a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula that killed all 224 people on board.

With thousands of foreign fighters in the ranks of jihadi groups - including as many as 7,000 from Russia and other former Soviet states alone, and a similar number from Europe - the Islamic State is a major domestic concern for the world's most powerful countries.

It is hoped that the G20 meeting will build the foundations of a truly global response to what has become a very global threat. And in this global response, Arab and Muslim nations have a central role to play.

In the aftermath of Friday's atrocities, right-wing extremist parties are having a field day. Even in Malta the anti-Muslim hate speech has been turned up a significant number of notches. In the wake of the Paris attacks, there has been mounting xenophobic sentiment directed at both Europe's Muslims and the incoming flux of refugees - those who are fleeing the same barbarians in their home countries.

This is simply not on.

Muslims around the world are posting photos of themselves holding placards bearing the phrase 'Not in my name'. This is no excuse or disclaimer, these are people who are revolted by the violence, violence which is not advocated by Islam - irrespective of the right wing's and the Islamic State's interpretations of the Koran, which are in actual fact strikingly similar and strikingly incorrect.   

The Paris attacks were not committed in the name of Islam; they were committed in the name of pure evil the likes of which the world has not seen since the Middle Ages.

We must not, in the coming weeks, turn our backs on the Syrians and others who are seeking our protection after fleeing the very horrors that unfolded in Paris. It is difficult for us to imagine living in a world in which attacks such as those committed in Paris on Friday take place every week or every day. But that is the terrifying reality these people are fleeing.

If we turn our backs on them, if we close our borders to them, we would have lost our own humanity. If we do that, the terrorists win.

In the coming weeks, let us ensure we do not lose sight of the values that have guided us for so long: liberté, égalité, fraternité. Whatever our responses are to the Paris attacks, if we lose sight of these three core values, the terrorists will have succeeded. 

We absolutely must not let that happen.