More people died in the Madrid, London and 9/11 attacks than in the Paris killings of Charlie Hebdo

More people died in the Madrid, London and 9/11 attacks than in the Paris killings, not to mention in recent bloodbaths in Pakistan and Nigeria, but millions in France and abroad took to the streets in defiance. Why?
The worst Islamist attack on European soil in nearly a decade - the three-day massacre that left 17 people dead in France - was widely perceived as an assault on freedom of expression in a country known for "liberty, equality, fraternity", experts say.

 'Je Suis Charlie' is projected on the French embassy near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. Photo / AP

Millions marched on Sunday in an unprecedented show of defiance for a nation already well versed in protests, joined by dozens of world leaders in a historic display of solidarity.
Hundreds of thousands more rallied around the world, and the little-known Charlie Hebdo magazine whose cartoonists were mowed down became a rallying cry for freedom as non-French speakers sported the "Je Suis Charlie" slogan, not least George Clooney at the Golden Globes.
Part of the reason for this global mobilisation, experts say, was the fact that brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi killed people for speaking and drawing their mind - in this case because of the weekly's past depictions of Prophet Mohammed.
"Cartoonists, friendly journalists, were massacred because they made us smile," psychiatrist Boris Cyrulnik told the Le Figaro daily.
The targeting of a policewoman and the anti-Semitic killings of four hostages in a Jewish supermarket by the third gunman Amedy Coulibaly added to the outrage.
In the minds of many, France has also embodied freedom and human rights since the revolution.

A man holds a giant pencil aloft at a Charlie rally in Brussels. Photo / AP
"We have not always lived up to the principles we stake a claim to, far from it, but even when the state failed, there were always great men, great Frenchmen whose names remain famous and revered across the five continents," radio journalist Bernard Guetta said.
On top of that, Europeans were likely shocked by what was the worst Islamist assault on the continent since the London bombings in 2005.
Shashank Joshi, senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute defence and security think-tank, said the most serious terror attack before the Paris killings was Anders Behring Breivik's 2011 massacre in Norway that left 77 dead.
"But Breivik's attack, horrific and destructive as it was, was not necessarily widely perceived as being part of an organised, ideological network that has threatened us over a sustained period of time," he said.
Some have pointed out that on the same day the Kouachi brothers waged the Charlie Hebdo assault last week, extremist group Boko Haram staged a horrific attack in northeast Nigeria, destroying at least 16 towns and villages.
One survivor recounted how he had to step over body after body for kilometres as he sought help, yet this bloodbath went almost unnoticed.
"There is an element of cultural exclusion, even racism," Joshi acknowledged.
"But it's also difficult for us to understand a more distant and culturally unfamiliar society like Pakistan, Nigeria or Yemen, with very complex politics and insurgency, than it is to understand a liberal democracy within the European Union like France.
"An attack in Paris is fundamentally more unusual and therefore perceived as more shocking than an attack in a country that is extremely violent."