Officer killed in attack is named as probe goes on

The Policeman killed in the Paris terror attack has been named as Xavier Jugelé as an investigation into the events are still on-going.
This undated image provided on Friday, April 21, 2017, by FLAG, an association of LGBT police officers, shows French police officer Xavier Jugele. The policeman killed on Paris' most famous boulevard was identified as Xavier Jugele by Flag! Its president, Mickael Bucheron, told AP the dead officer would have celebrated his 38th birthday at the beginning of May. (FLAG via AP)This undated image provided on Friday, April 21, 2017, by FLAG, an association of LGBT police officers, shows French police officer Xavier Jugele. The policeman killed on Paris' most famous boulevard was identified as Xavier Jugele by Flag! Its president, Mickael Bucheron, told AP the dead officer would have celebrated his 38th birthday at the beginning of May. (FLAG via AP)
This undated image provided on Friday, April 21, 2017, by FLAG, an association of LGBT police officers, shows French police officer Xavier Jugele. The policeman killed on Paris' most famous boulevard was identified as Xavier Jugele by Flag! Its president, Mickael Bucheron, told AP the dead officer would have celebrated his 38th birthday at the beginning of May. (FLAG via AP)

The officer, who would have celebrated his 38th birthday in May, was killed when gunman Karim Cheurfi opened fire on police in the French capital on Thursday night

It has also been revealed that the officer was also on duty during the terror attacks in Paris in November 2015.

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Mr Jugele was identified by Flag!, a French association of LGBT police officers.

He was among the officers who responded to the gun and bomb attack on the Bataclan concert hall, part of a wave of assaults in Paris that killed 130 people.

He spoke to People.com when the venue reopened a year later with a concert by Sting where he was quoted as saying how happy he was to be at the “symbolic” reopening, “here to defend our civic values”.

Poignantly at that time he had also said: “This concert’s to celebrate life. To say ‘No’ to terrorists.”

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The gunman, 39-year-old Frenchman Karim Cheurfi, was shot and killed by Mr Jugele’s police colleagues and identified by his finger prints.

National police spokesman Jerome Bonet said there were thousands of people on Paris’ famous boulevard when the gunman opened fire and the rapid response of officers who shot and killed him avoided possible “carnage”.

As Paris got back to business yesterday, municipal workers in white hygiene suits were out before dawn to wash down the pavement where the assault
 took place - a scene now depressingly familiar after multiple attacks that have killed more than 230 people in France over two years.

Meanwhile, the two police officers injured in the attack are said to be out of danger. Islamic State said it was behind the attack, just days before the country’s presidential election.

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Two of the main candidates, conservative Francois Fillon and centrist Emmanuel Macron, cancelled planned campaign stops yesterday.

In a video posted online, Mr Macron said: “The terrorist’s will is to destabilise the country.

“In such circumstances, the role of the president of the Republic as the army chief and guardian of our institutions is to protect the French. I am ready.”

During his message to he French voters, Mr Macron also recalled a series of security measures listed in his campaign platform - to boost police and military forces and intelligence services, and pursue France’s military operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

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The attack brought back a recurring campaign theme of France’s fight against Islamic extremism, one of the mainstays of the anti-immigration platform of far-right leader Marine Le Pen and also, to a lesser extent, of Mr Fillon, a former prime minister.

In the wake of the assault, they redoubled appeals for a firmer hand against Islamic extremism and promised get-tough measures if elected.

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