 I have the next item of business consideration of business motion 14856 in the name of Joffit's Patrick. On behalf of the parliamentary bureau, setting out a revision to business programme for today. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press a request-speak button now and I call on Joffit's Patrick to move motion number 14856. No members ask to speak against the motion therefore I now put the motion of the chamber. The question is that motion number 1486 In the name of Joffx Patrick be agreed to are we all agreed The motion is there for agreed to The next item business is motion number S4M 14848 In the name of Nicholas Sergian on a motion of condones for Paris 13 November 2015 I am very pleased that we are joined in the gallery for today's motion of condones by the french consul Emmeline Javier Emilyne is accompanied by representatives from the French community in Scotland and is also some staff of French origin working in the Parliament. Le Parlement écocie, Vaudry ex-Premie, Sapre fronte, Somme profe, et solidarité, Avec lait, Abitante du paris, Elais poplée fronte. The Scottish Parliament is united in our sympathy and solidarity with the people of Paris and with France. Before turning to party leaders, I also want to let you know that, after today's motion of condolence, I will write to Monsieurs Claude Bartolone and Monsieurs Gérard Larchard, the president of the National Assembly and Senate of France, informing them of the support being offered here today and expressing our condolences from across the Parliament. A book of condolences was opened yesterday to the public in our main hall, and that hall is to deal it up in the colours of the French trickle-er. The book has been signed earlier this afternoon by the party leaders, and I invite members to join them and the public in doing so. I now call Nicola Sturgeon to speak to move the motion, First Minister. Presiding Officer, Deputy Consul-General of France, it is with great sadness that I rise to move this motion. The terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday night have caused shock and grief right around the world. Today, we mourn the innocent victims, at least 129 of them who lost their lives. We hope for the recovery of all those who were injured, and we send our thoughts, our prayers and our condolences to all those affected. In doing so, this chamber and indeed all the people of Scotland say unequivocally that we stand in solidarity with France and the French people. On Saturday, I met the French Consul-General to convey that message of solidarity. It is a message that has been echoed many times over by people from right across our country. Expressions of sympathy have poured into the French consulate and have been widely shared on social media. Landmarks across the country, including our own Parliament, have been lit in the colours of the French flag. Yesterday's one minute silence was widely observed in Scotland as it was across the whole of Europe. People across Scotland have sent the clearest possible message that we stand as one with France in their condemnation of terror and in their grief for its victims. As well as making that fundamental and heartfelt statement of solidarity, the Scottish Government has also considered what steps need to be taken as a result of the attacks in Paris. Over the past three days, I have chaired three meetings of the Scottish Government's resilience committee. The Scottish Government has also been in close and regular contact with UK Government ministers and officials, and I have participated in two meetings of the Cobra Committee. An important initial focus has been on ensuring that we provide assistance and support to anyone who needs it. Police Scotland and the Scottish Ambulance Service have, for example, been deploying teams to meet flights incoming from Paris. We have also reflected on security here in Scotland. The overall threat level in the UK is classified as severe, however, people in Scotland are safe to go about their day-to-day business and they should continue to do so. Police Scotland advised people to be vigilant and alert but not alarmed. I can assure the chamber that, working closely with Police Scotland and with UK Government colleagues, we will continue to reflect carefully on the security position and take all necessary and proportionate steps to ensure that people in communities here at home are as safe and as well protected as possible. One important part of doing that is to reaffirm this Parliament's commitment to a diverse and multicultural society. I observed the minute silence yesterday at Glasgow Central Mosque. John Swinney on Sunday attended a service at St Giles in Edinburgh. Michael Matheson is meeting the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities this afternoon. What is very clear is that the reaction to the events in Paris, the shock, the sorrow, the anger and the fear is shared by those of all faiths and none, just as it is shared throughout this chamber and in every community across Scotland and around the world. The terrorists who committed these atrocities in Paris claimed to be Muslims but, in truth, terrorism has no religion. The evil actions of these terrorists do not speak for Islam. Instead, they are a perversion of that faith and a deep insult to the millions across the world who had here peacefully to its values. The attacks in Paris, like all acts of terrorism, were intended to spread fear and undermine our way of life. They were also meant to be divisive, to drive a wedge into communities and societies and turn neighbour against neighbour. It is, of course, a normal and an entirely understandable human instinct to be anxious and fearful in light of what happened on Friday night. We all feel it. Governments must recognise and address these concerns, and I give a commitment today that this Government will do so. We must also, together as a society, resist the instinct to retreat or to turn on each other. If we are determined, as we must be, that the terrorists will not prevail, then difficult and challenging, though it undoubtedly is, our response must be one of defiance and solidarity, not of fear and division. The actions of the few must not be allowed to undermine the values, freedoms and the way of life of the many. Today, Scotland is welcoming refugees from Syria. Other parts of the UK will do likewise over the next few weeks. Let me be clear. People across Scotland and the UK have every right to seek and receive assurances from their Governments that robust security checks are being carried out and that public safety is not being compromised. Here in Scotland and across the UK, I think that we should also feel proud that we are providing refuge for some of the most vulnerable individuals who are fleeing for safety from the type of people who carried out the attacks in Paris on Friday night. We should be confident that Scotland will benefit from their presence just as we have benefited so often in the past when we have welcomed people from around the world. We should reflect once again that diversity is not a weakness, it is one of modern Scotland's great strengths. Today is an opportunity for this chamber to support that diversity and to demonstrate a wider solidarity. We grieve deeply for those in Paris who lost their lives and we stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in France. We remember two of those who have been the victims of terror elsewhere, including the 224 people who died when a Russian airliner was brought down in Egypt last month. We reaffirmed today our unshakable commitment to a peaceful, secure, multicultural and tolerant Scotland, the kind of society that the terrorists want to destroy, but one that we are determined to uphold, cherish and protect. I thank the First Minister for her words and would like to associate myself with her in her entirety. On behalf of the Scottish Labour Party, I would also like to send on my condolences, thoughts and prayers to those caught in the attacks in Paris and to the people of France. On Friday evening, people across that city set out to enjoy the ordinary freedom of their weekend in restaurants and bars, at sporting events and at music concerts. Just as we did in Edinburgh and Glasgow, just as others did in towns and cities across the world. What happened on Friday night was not just an attack on the people of Paris, but on the way of life of those of us who want to live in a world marked by the values of freedom and tolerance. We share the grief of the people of Paris. The world stands with them as they take their first tentative steps on the road to recovery. There are lots of views about how the world should respond to those attacks, and in this place we can influence how we respond as a society. The French Nobel Prize winning philosopher Albert Camus summed it up well when he wrote, "...the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion." Earlier today I read the story of a Frenchman whose wife was killed in the attacks. He writes about how he and his 17-month-old son will remain defiant in the face of terror. He says, "...we are only two, my son and I, but we are more powerful than all of the world's armies. Every day of his life, this little boy will insult you with his happiness and his freedom." Presiding officer, the death and destruction, the senseless acts of terror and violence have one ultimate goal, and that is to fundamentally change our society, to transform us from a society that values tolerance, integration, solidarity and freedom into one that rejects all of those things. We are a nation that considers all people to be born equal and deserving of respect, regardless of sexuality, gender, race, faith or disability. So when the first of the refugees from Syria arrive in Glasgow today, let's welcome them with open and loving arms. Let's look at them just as we do those Parisians who fled the violence on Friday evening. People like you and I who do not want to live in fear of constant violence, families who just want to get on with their lives, because they have travelled halfway across the world to get away from terrorists in their own land, often driven by the fear that lies behind them over the road ahead. So from this chamber to those refugees arriving today, let the message ring out. You will find friendship in your new home here in Scotland, and please know that you are very, very welcome. Thank you. Ruth Davidson Thank you. Presiding Officer, Deputy Constable General, I may extend my condolences and the condolences of my party to the families of those who died or were injured on Friday night. Our prayers are with them today. We stand in solidarity with all the people of Paris. We share their disgust at what were acts of cowardice and evil, and we share their fear too, because we know that this could have been us eating a meal at a restaurant, enjoying a night at a concert, watching a game of football. If ever we needed it, it was a reminder that this conflict is not one we choose to take part in, it is one that is upon us whether we wish it or not. Presiding Officer, this motion today calls on us to unite in the wake of these attacks. That indeed is the vital task that we face in the coming weeks, not just here in Scotland, but across the civilised world. We face an extremist ideology that hopes to divide us, Muslim from non-Muslim, secular from religious, in the hope that the gap becomes so wide that conflict is the only response. We cannot, we must not let the extremists win. Rather we must confront them and show that those very freedoms that they wish to crush to wipe from our lives and from our world are freedoms that we will not give up willingly. The plurality, diversity, creativity of free nations stand in stark contrast to those who would murder aid workers, throw gay men from buildings or stone women in the public square. A resolve must be to use both hard and soft power to protect those freedoms. Both will be vital in showing that we have it within us to take on extremism and the extremists who would export it to our shores. As the Prime Minister said last night, military power and counter-terrorism will only ever get us so far vital as they are. More important is to understand and address the hatred under pinning Friday's attacks and others like them. We should not kill ourselves or worse seek to blame ourselves for what is behind this new threat. Indeed, it is simple. It is an ideology driven to crush the values of freedom, of liberty and of equality that we all in this chamber hold dear. The motion today, which I am proud to support, calls on us to ensure that acts of terrorism will not succeed in dividing us or destroying those freedoms, and that must be our response. To show that all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim, secular or religious, stand resolute in exposing this poisonous ideology for what it is, a sham cult praying on immature young, minds designed only to sow hatred and to shed blood. We must confront all those that seek to embed its poison in our society, and we must, as the First Minister says, encourage moderate Muslim voices in Scotland and abroad to show the world that it is not those extremists who have ownership of their faith but them. For all of us, the message is clear. To set out this conflict by failing to stand up for our values is to fail. It is to fail ourselves and fail every other human who looks to the freedoms that we enjoy with longing and hope for their own lives. We will not be cowed nor limit ourselves in the joys that they seek to curb. No matter how many more attacks, we will conduct ourselves with confidence, with vigor and with boldness, in our free worship, in our free will, in our football matches, our concerts and our restaurants. We stand united always. The city of love is wounded by hate. Today, to Paris, we send our love to help it heal. Of course, we are afraid. We saw the fear of people in Paris on Friday, and so we can imagine the fear of the refugees flaying the barbarity of those same killers back home. Of course, we must tread with care across the world, yet Western Government did not have it coming. Nothing justifies this. Of course there is no them. Those killers do not represent the Muslim faith, Muslim countries or Muslim people or anything else good and noble. Those killers only represent themselves. Of course, something must be done, yet we must protect what we cherish most and what they detest most, our freedom. We must nurture our progressive, liberal, free society, so this is no time for haste, revenge, insularity or generalisations. We must be resolute. This is a time to grieve, to heal, to plan, to solve and to unite. Patrick Harvie I extend the support of the green and independent group for the motion of condolence today. Every single one of us will have felt the shock as the news emerged on Friday evening, but also the wave of empathy across Europe and the world in the wake of these terrible events. We mourn with those who have lost people close to them. We express our concern for those critically injured and still fighting for their lives. We extend our solidarity with Paris and Parisians and we will oppose not only the criminals responsible for this latest atrocity, but also the twisted ideology that they follow. The 129 deaths in Paris add to a gruesome tally of the atrocities committed in the name of that ideology, not least the series of attacks in France in January, including at the Charlie Hebdo offices. The countless deaths in Syria and the wider region. The sexual violence on a mass scale with unknown thousands of women and girls abducted into sexual slavery. The torture, mutilation and summary executions often most noticed when perpetrated against Western victims or used as propaganda weapons, but in truth happening on a vast scale. Mass murder, including on grounds of religion. The Paris attacks came in the same week as reports of yet another mass grave of Yazidi women in Sinjar and just a day after 41 people were killed in a double suicide bombing in Beirut. Every single one of these lives matters. Today's motion offers our condolences but also our solidarity. That is critical. Those attacks are designed to strike not just at individuals but at the very nature of our societies. They are designed to provoke a backlash, to provoke the mindless reaction that we have tragically already seen in parts of Scotland, to drive more disaffected and angry young people who experience anti-Islamic prejudice every day of their lives into the arms of the terrorists. We must deny them the backlash they seek. Liberty, equality, fraternity—these are the values that should be at the heart of European society and they are under direct attack. They are values that must be protected and extended as we prepare to welcome those who have been forced to flee this violence and in memory of those who have been lost in the attacks in Paris, we must live by those values as never before. Christian Allot Thank you very much, Presiding Officer, for letting me say a few words. A few words would be a thank you to this chamber, to everybody who spoke already, and thank you to all the communities in Scotland and all the Scottish people who are assembled in Aberdeen in Glasgow, in Edinburgh, and all across the communities supporting a community which is very close to me, the French communities living here in Scotland, and some of them are living and working here, working here in Parliament. And I just wanted to convey how much we appreciate your support, the support being of the year and the support now and particularly this weekend. It's very, very much heartfelt, it's very much appreciated, and from the bottom of my heart, I would say from them, from all French citizens living here in Scotland, merci. I am now going to a more brief suspension before we move to the next item of business, we will return to 35.