France pays tribute to the constable Beltrame, “hero” of an entire country

AFP

AFP

Wednesday, 28 march 2018, 04:16

UPDATE
Wednesday, 28 march 2018, 04:19

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PARIS | Unknown a week ago, the policeman Arnaud Beltrame is celebrated Wednesday as a hero by France, which makes him a national homage five days after his death during the attacks jihadists in the south of the country.

Several hundred people are expected to attend at the Invalides monument in paris which houses a necropolis military and the mortal remains of Napoleon 1st, now become a place of homage, national great men and women, as the former minister Simone Weil in July of last year.

The president and Emmanuel Macron to deliver the eulogy of this officer of 44 years who “gave his life to protect” his fellow citizens.

The time of a morning, this ceremony must be put between parentheses the controversy over counter-terrorism policy of the government that has continued to swell since that Radouane Lakdim, a petty criminal radicalized, was killed on Friday, four people in Carcassonne and Trebes.

At the same time, lieutenant-colonel Beltrame has been promoted to the rank of colonel, on the decision of the president, according to the official Journal. It is also mentioned in the order of the Nation for his “exemplary courage” and his “total denial”.

Opposition leaders such as Laurent Wauquiez (The Republicans, the right) and Marine Le Pen (national Front, extreme right) will be present, alongside the whole of government and former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande.

Among the 400 people invited to participate include the families of the victims.

The coffin of Arnaud Beltrame will be accompanied by 200 of his brothers in arms, companions who have crossed the course of his distinguished career in the army and the gendarmerie.

Before joining the Invalides, the funeral procession will be waiting a quarter of an hour in front of the Pantheon, the necropolis lay of the “great men” in French.

Testifying to the national emotion, the ceremony will be broadcast live by many tv channels.

On Wednesday night, the mounties have been able to make a tribute to intimate to their colleague in a barracks in paris where her coffin was transported after leaving Carcassonne.

Arnaud Beltrame “felt intrinsically constable. For him being a policeman, it means to protect,” said his widow Marielle to the weekly christian Life. His decision to surrender to the jihadist instead of a woman hostage was “the gesture of a policeman and the act of a christian,” she added.

“Sense of duty”

Silhouette is slender and clear eyes, Arnaud Beltrame was out major, military school, before joining an elite unit of paratroopers in Iraq, and then to participate in the security of the presidential palace of the Elysée and control a company in Normandy.

Her funeral mass will be celebrated Thursday at Ferrals (south), where he resided with his wife. The three other victims – Hervé Sosna, Jean Mazières and Christian Medves – will also be buried Thursday.

Since his death, Arnaud Beltrame symbolizes for the press and the political leaders of the “sense of duty”, “bravery”, “courage” and “heroism”, and some municipalities have already given his name to a street or a public place.

But if it is unanimous, this is not the case of the governmental policy of fight against radical islam and follow-up of the most extremist, highly criticized by the right and the extreme right.

Mr. Wauquiez has denounced Monday the “guilty of naivety” Emmanuel Macron and called for the restoration of the state of emergency and the expulsion of the foreign flagged “S” (for “State security”).

“There is no worse exploitation than to hide behind a hero to escape his own incompetence and his own cowardice. (…) There is no worse disrespect to the victims as to want nothing to change”, has accused his side of Ms. Le Pen.

The Prime minister Edward Philip responded by saying “beware of the legal answers fast”. There is already “a legal arsenal (…) to understand, track, and punish,”-he stressed.

Killed on Friday during the onslaught of the elite unit of the gendarmerie, Radouane Lakdim was stuck “S” from 2014 and registered since November 2015 at the File of reports for the prevention and radicalization of terrorist nature.