Colonel Arnaud Beltrame

Marielle Beltrame, widow of the late Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, who died in south eastern France on March 24 having voluntarily taken the place of a hostage in an radical Islamist terror attack, has spoken about her husband.  

She said: "He felt himself to be a gendarme by his very nature. For him, being a gendarme meant to protect. But one cannot understand his sacrifice if one separates it from his personal faith.

"It is the gesture of a gendarme and of a Christian. For him ... one cannot separate one from the other."