In August this year Salman Rushdie was stabbed multiple times. The novelist survived the attack, to the outward relief of the West. Prominent figures from the world of religion, politics and the arts offered their unqualified support to Rushdie as he lay in a New York hospital, recovering from the 12 knife wounds to his body.
The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, whose city in recent years has been targeted on several occasions by Islamist extremists, tweeted her support for Rushdie, a writer she described as ‘inspiring and a free man’.
