Tributes are pouring in for a French police officer who died saving the lives of hostages in a supermarket siege in southern France on Friday.

Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, 44, who willingly took the place of a hostage during a standoff with a gunman, died of injuries suffered in the incident early Saturday.

The gunman, identified by prosecutors as Redouane Lakdim, who went on a shooting spree and took several people hostage, was killed and a second suspect has been arrested.

Al Jazeera's Natacha Butler reports from Carcassonne, France.