A memorial service has been held for the four victims of the terrorist shooting spree and supermarket hostage-taking in southern France, as police continued to question two teenagers about the gunman, who claimed allegiance to Islamic State.
The Catholic church service in the small town of Trèbes, near Carcassonne, was attended by religious leaders and local imams as well as mourners, survivors and rescue workers. The bishop of Carcassonne and Narbonne, Alain Planet, called for community cohesion and the courage “to rebuild a society where events like this would no longer be possible”.
A national memorial organised by the government will be held at a later date for the gendarme Lt Col Arnaud Beltrame, 45, who died from bullet and stab wounds after taking the place of supermarket hostages the gunman, Radouane Lakdim, had used as a human shield during the attack on Friday.
After the interior minister, Gérard Collomb, said he believed Lakdim had acted alone, on Sunday police were continuing to question a 17-year-old as well as Lakdim’s 18-year-old girlfriend. It emerged that the gunman also brought homemade explosives into the supermarket where he took customers hostage.
Lakdim, 25, a smalltime drug-dealer who had French nationality and was born in Morocco, left a handwritten letter at his home pledging allegiance to Isis, according to a legal source.
Despite being on a watchlist for people considered potential extremists and having been under surveillance for potential radicalisation in 2016 and 2017, Lakdim carried out the armed attacks on Friday not far from his home in the picturesque town of Carcassonne.
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