Tribes attack: Paris ceremony for hero policeman Arnaud Beltrame.

Tribes attack: Paris ceremony for hero policeman Arnaud Beltrame.

Tributes have been paid across France to the
police officer who died after he offered himself in
exchange for a hostage in an Islamist attack.
The coffin carrying Lt Col Arnaud Beltrame was
driven in heavy rain through Paris, where hundreds
of people joined a national memorial service.
President Emmanuel Macron said the officer, who
was 44, symbolised the "French spirit of
resistance".
Three other people were also killed in Friday's
attacks in southern France.
Col Beltrame's widow and his friends, family and
colleagues attended a ceremony at Les Invalides in
the French capital.
France lauds hero policeman
Trèbes memorial Mass for victims
"To be willing to die so that innocent people
continue to live, this is the heart of a soldier's
promise," Mr Macron said in his eulogy as the
coffin draped in the French flag laid in the cobbled
courtyard.
"To be ready to give your own life because nothing
is more important than the life of a citizen, this is
the ultimate effect of the transcendence he bore."
In the service, also attended by several former
French presidents, Mr Macron awarded the officer
France's highest accolade, the Legion d'Honneur.
Earlier, a minute's silence was observed at all
police stations across France, and flags were
lowered to half-mast on public buildings.
The officer was a highly regarded member of the
Gendarmerie Nationale, and friends and relatives
have remembered his sense of duty and generosity.
His brother Cedric told a French radio station on
Saturday: "He gave his life for strangers. He must
have known that he didn't really have a chance. If
that doesn't make him a hero, I don't know what
would."

Col Beltrame's coffin will now travel back to the
southern city of Carcassone for his funeral.