At least 10 people are reported to have died in flash flooding in the Languedoc region of southern France where very heavy rainfall fell for an unusually long period overnight Sunday, with waters reaching a high of seven metres in some places.
Stéphane Poussier, a parliamentary candidate in elections in 2017 for the radical-left France Insoumise (France Unbowed) party, has been arrested after sending a message via Twitter rejoicing over the death of gendarmerie officer Arnaud Beltrame, who voluntarily took the place of a hostage during Friday's terrorist shootings in south-west France and who subsequently died from gunshot and stab wounds.
A Catholic church service, attended by religious leaders including local imams as well as mourners, survivors and rescue workers, was held on Sunday in the small town of Trèbes, near Carcassonne in south-west France, for the four victims of the Friday shooting attacks perpetrated by a 25-year-old gunman who claimed to be acting in the name of the so-called Islamic State group.
The death toll from the shooting spree in and around the town of Carcassonne on Friday has risen to four after gendarmerie officer Lt Col Arnaud Beltrame, who was described as 'a hero' by President Emmanuel Macron, volunteered to swap places with a woman taken hostage by the lone gunman before being shot several times, died overnight from his wounds.
Gendarmerie Lt-Col Arnaud Beltrame, 45, who voluntered to swap places with a woman taken hostage as a human shield by a Moroccan-French national Redouane Lakdim who, acting in the name of the Islamic State group had taken over a supermarket in south-west France after killing three people in separate attacks, was on Friday in hospital in a critical condition after being shot several times by the 25-year-old gunman before a special-forces police unit stormed the store.
A shooting spree on Friday morning in and around the town of Carcassonne in south-west France, when three people were killed and another 16 wounded, and which ended in a hostage-taking at a supermarket when the lone 25-year-old gunman was shot dead by police, has been claimed in the name of the Islamic State group.
At least three people were murdered and several others wounded in a series of attacks, described by officials as terrorism, by a lone gunman near Carcassonne, in south-west France, which ended when police shot him dead during a supermarket siege.
