WHAT was horribly striking about the atrocity in Paris at the weekend were the pictures of the victims.

Virtually all of them were in the flower of youth. Cut down by barbarians for having the temerity to enjoy life, and a thirst for learning and excitement, embodying the very meaning of being young and not indoctrinated by ignorance and hate.

Take Marie Mosser.

Just 24 years old Marie died that night in the Bataclan Theatre along with 80 others in unimaginable circumstances.

Marie loved Brighton.

For the last two summers she stayed with the O’Mahony family in the city while she brushed up on her English.

Ambitious, intelligent, pretty and typically French, she was everything the O’Mahoney’s loved about the country over the Channel and everything the murderers hated, for reasons that will always remain unfathomable for all right-thinking people.

Marie joins other young people on the roll call of infamy on that night at the rock concert.

But here is the real lesson of her pointless death. Marie and all of the victims of this savagery will win in the end.

The picture of her on our front page today, beaming vitality, hope and beauty, and the memories of her from all those she touched, will live long, long after the perpetrators have been forgotten. What she stands for can never be snuffed out by a coward with a gun.