The terrorist attacks in Paris shocked us all. A little over a week later we know that grief and anger must give way to a grim determination to counter this terrorist threat and to address both the immediate danger of more attacks and the causes of radicalisation that plague our societies.

These were no random attacks. Paris was targeted because it is the embodiment of what Europe stands for. They were planned in order to strike the maximum amount of fear into all of us and designed to make us feel unsafe doing the things we always do and living the lives we want to live.

We cannot let that happen. These attacks targeted everyone indiscriminately. It was not about religion or ideology. It was about fear. It was the same message we saw in the recent attacks in Beirut, Tunisia, Nigeria and around the world.

It is undeniable that the attacks in Paris have struck fear into the hearts of the people of Europe. We are grappling for answers as to how and why this tragedy happened, but we cannot allow this to breed intolerance and hate within ourselves. This would play right into Isis’s hands to turn communities in Europe into a fertile recruiting ground for their murderous cause.

It is our European values that must form the basis of how we respond to these attacks

It is also clear that, as a union, we need to do more to tackle the geopolitical issues plaguing states like Syria and Libya. We need a new-found impetus for the world order to come together and deny Isis any gap to exploit.

We need to see a unity government in Libya and work towards a situation in Syria that will see Isis defeated and Bashar al-Assad no longer in power, and no option should be off the table to ensure that happens.

In the immediate aftermath, France has activated the EU’s “mutual-defence clause” for its EU partners to provide support for its operations against Isis. Every EU member State should respond.

Malta has said that it will help “in line with its Constitution”. Let me be crystal clear. There is nothing in our Constitution that prevents us from helping in any way we can. This was an attack on us, too.

Now this does not necessarily mean sending any troops but can also mean helping in an operational scenario, sending aid, providing logistics and more, while ensuring that Malta plays its role as a centre of peace in the region.

We know that these terrorists were EU nationals who have lived in Europe and become radicalised along the way. We need a much stronger approach to radicalisation. We need to root out the hate preachers in our communities and look at what causes people to become susceptible to be radicalised.

We need to come down harder on so-called foreign fighters. These EU nationals, who go to fight in Syria or other conflicts and return to the EU to recruit more people, should face serious consequences such as having their passports revoked or cancelled with harsher penalties for anyone involved in aiding terror cells.

The worst thing we can do is allow these attacks to redefine our values or somehow water down our standards.

These attacks were perpetrated indiscriminately by criminals and murderers. Not refugees. We would be absolutely wrong and self-defeating to consider them to be the same.

Refugees, by their very definition, are people running away from persecution, from terror, from death, and Europe must continue to set an example to help give these people a future without fear. It is our European values that must form the basis of how we respond to these attacks.

At the same time, we have to be realistic and not bury our heads in the sand. People do have genuine security fears that must be addressed. This means that we do need stronger EU level security legislation; it means that the management of our external borders has to be tight and strong.

We need to know who is coming and where they are, and we must insist that all member states fulfil their legal obligations to, for example, fingerprint everyone arriving at EU borders.

The security of our citizens and of the people in need of protection must be a paramount concern. Otherwise, the narrative that refugees could somehow pose a danger will become mainstream.

It is a dual approach that will see a humane yet strong border policy. It is a fine line but one that needs to be walked.

Roberta Metsola is a Nationalist MEP.