French election candidates pause from campaign to attend memorial for Xavier Jugelé, who was murdered last week

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

For a brief moment on Tuesday morning, France’s battling presidential candidates suspended a bitter campaign to honour the police officer shot dead on the Champs-Elysées in Paris last week.

François Hollande, the outgoing president, led the tribute to Xavier Jugelé, 37, as the independent centrist Emmanuel Macron and the far-right leader Marine Le Pen looked on.

Karim Cheurfi, 39 and a French citizen, killed Jugelé when he opened fire on a police van parked on the French capital’s most famous avenue with an automatic assault rifle. Two other police officers were injured in the attack for which Islamic State claimed responsibility. Cheurfi was shot dead as he tried to flee.

Jugelé was one of the officers who raced to the Bataclan concert hall when three armed men with suicide bombs stormed the venue and killed 90 people on 13 November 2015.

A defender of gay rights, he was a member of Flag, a French association for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender police officers, and had joined protests against Russia’s ban on “homosexual propaganda” before the 2014 Olympics.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A portrait of XavierJugelé at the ceremony. Photograph: Thibault Camus/AP

In a moving tribute, away from the ranks of politicians and digitaries, Jugelé’s partner Etienne Cardiles said “I suffer without hate” and went on to quote the phrase “You will not have my hatred”, which was used by Antoine Leiris after his wife Hélène Muyal was killed in the Bataclan attack in 2015.

Cardiles told how he and Jugelé had exchanged text messages on Thursday about a holiday they were planning. He said the police officer was happy to be stationed on the Champs-Elysée because it was, for him, “the image of France”.

“At that moment in that place, the worst happened,” Cardiles said. “It was one of those events that everyone dreads while hoping it will never happen. You will stay in my heart forever. Let’s remain dignified … let’s live in peace.”

Hollande awarded Jugelé the Chevalier of the Légion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest honours, and promoted him to the rank of captain, at the ceremony at Paris’s police headquarters.

The president described the fallen officer as “an everyday hero”, adding: “France has lost one of its bravest sons”.

Jugelé, he said, was “assassinated by a hateful fanatic … seeking to perpetrate a carnage” and urged the French people to support the police.

“They deserve our esteem, our solidarity, our admiration,” said Hollande.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marine Le Pen at the memorial. Photograph: Aurelien Meunier/Getty Images

Macron and Le Pen both dressed sombrely in dark blue coats to attend the memorial for the murdered police officer.

It was the shortest of lulls in the presidential race, which will culminate in a runoff vote on 7 May.

Earlier on Tuesday, Le Pen had visited the Rungis wholesale market south of Paris, where she again attacked her rival saying he was for “total deregulation” and she stood for “market regulation”.

Francis Fauchère, president of the meat wholesalers union at Rungis, said Le Pen was like “all the other candidates who we see every five years and who promise the same things”.

On Tuesday morning Jean-Marie Le Pen told France Inter radio that his daughter’s campaign had been “too laid back” until now and said he would have preferred a “Trump-style” approach to the election that was “very aggressive against those responsible for the country’s decadence”.

Jean-Marie Le Pen was ousted as the Front National honorary president in 2015 in a clash with his daughter and younger officials after making antisemitic remarks.

Macron was due to visit a hospital to talk about the care of people with disabilities on Tuesday afternoon.

Also on Tuesday, a Japanese-based cybersecurity research group called Trend Micro claimed Macron’s campaign was targeted by Russian hackers last month. It said The Pawn Storm group was linked to several phishing attempts to steal personal data from the candidate and members of his En Marche! campaign.

“There is always some technical uncertainty when it comes to attribution,” Loic Guezo, a strategist for southern Europe at Trend Micro, told AFP.

“But we have analysed the operating tactics with data compiled over two years, which allowed us to determine the source.”



After her first round election victory, Le Pen announced on Monday evening she was stepping aside from her role as president of the Front National.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest French president François Hollande presents a posthumous award to Xavier Jugelé. Photograph: Thibault Camus/AFP/Getty

She announced Jean-François Jalkh, one of the party’s vice presidents and a friend of her father, would replace her during the campaign. French papers pointed out that Jalkh was present at a celebration in 1991 to mark the 40th anniversary of the death of Philippe Pétain, the head of France’s collaborationist Vichy government.

In a 2005 interview, Jalkh told Le Temps de savoirs review that he considered it “impossible ... from a technical point of view” that Zyklon B gas was used in the Nazi death chambers.

Jean-Yves Camus, a political analyst and specialist in the FN at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation thinktank, said the decision “wasn’t going to fool anyone” inside or outside the FN.

“Everyone knows she is not leaving the shop, there is no ‘president-in-waiting’ ... she wants to appear like Emmanuel Macron, a candidate not endorsed by any party,” Camus said on Tuesday.





• This article was amended on 26 April 2017 to correct and clarify remarks made by Etienne Cardiles.