'We need to hold out hands in friendship to our fellow human beings to try and promote peace'

Everyone mingled together, we chatted and shared food and it was a really happy day.

How sad, then, to read that the only response of the French government is to increase security in the wake of the horrific mass killing in Nice, following on so quickly from other atrocities in Paris.

Although this is necessary, surely it is just as important – or even more so - to try to get the different populations to engage with other, to ensure that Muslim representatives communicate with the Government and vice versa so that there is less alienation, suspicion and hatred. Here in Britain the story is very different and we have Muslims who advise the Government which tries to work with different communities and where interfaith groups help to break down barriers.

Our Interfaith Friendship Circles are a great way to do this, where people of different faiths meet together in each other’s houses, or elsewhere, and talk about topics they share in common, sometimes religious, sometimes not, for example birth, marriage and death rituals in the different faiths, or films they have seen, holidays they have enjoyed.

Sometimes a meal in a restaurant is shared.

We need to hold out hands in friendship to our fellow human beings to try and promote peace, THAT is the way forward.

Carolyn Jones (Hon. Sec., Altrincham Interfaith Group and member of Dunham Road Unitarian Chapel)