The body-count in Paris currently stands at 128, with another 100 severely wounded. But it is a mark of twenty-first century Europe that none of this is surprising.

The suicide bombers at a football stadium, the hostage-taking at a Parisian theatre and drive-by shootings at a restaurant have become normal.

Will it take another attack like this to remind people that an effectively borderless continent with free internal movement was always a security disaster waiting to happen?

The truth is that France, like the rest of our continent, has effectively been inhabiting two realities. On the one hand there is the politically correct, politically acceptable discussion which says that terrorism and “radicalisation” must be confronted at home and abroad.

More eager to tackle it abroad than at home, the French authorities – like the British government – pretend to be working on ‘integration’ within their own country. In fact, in France – even less than in Britain – such a thing barely occurs.

And it is not only Muslim migrants who notice this. Even before this year’s wave of terror, 74 per cent of the French public said that Islam itself was “incompatible” with the values of French society.

These people know that the actual terrorism is committed by a small segment of the Islamic community. But they also know that too many people urge on that small segment or think it is in some way justifiable.

It only took two gunmen to shoot up the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January and another solitary gunman to attack a Jewish foodstore.

But the French public knew what their political leaders and media try to pretend away – which is that behind those few people were a large number of French Muslim citizens, and more recent arrivals, who thought the cartoonists and the Jews had it coming to them.

Hollande and Merkel have poured fuel onto Europe’s fire by arguing for an effectively borderless continent

Yet all the time – and even after the terrorist attacks in Paris in January – President Hollande, like Chancellor Merkel, pretends that the main problem is nativist bigotry. And of course while talking about an abstract ‘radicalism’ which might afflict anyone at any time, Hollande and Merkel have poured fuel onto Europe’s fire by arguing for an effectively borderless continent.

Where are those mass immigration advocates this morning? Where are the people who pretend that an immigrant from a Muslim background and an immigrant of Christian background are equally likely to integrate into France?

Did it need this to remind us that the reality is different from our multicultural fantasy? Or will it take another attack like this to remind people that an effectively borderless continent with free internal movement was always a security disaster waiting to happen?

After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January Paris briefly halted to hold a pointless protest of solidarity with pencils held in the air. World leaders solemnly linked arms and marched through the streets.

For a few hours everyone said they were “Charlie”. But in the end almost nobody was Charlie and the whole charade added up to mean absolutely nothing.

In the days ahead doubtless we will have more “defiant” gestures. Twitter and Facebook will be alive with more futile hashtags of “solidarity”.