Posthumous wedding for slain gay policeman
Paris, May 31: The partner of a gay policeman gunned down by a jihadist on Paris’s ChampsElysees avenue in April has married him posthumously, the daily Le Parisien reported Wednesday.
Former president Francois Hollande and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo attended the wedding on Tuesday of the late Xavier Jugele and Etienne Cardiles.
Jugele, 37, was shot dead on April 20 while on duty on the famous Parisian avenue, three days before the first round of France’s presidential election.
He had campaigned for gay rights within the police force. At a moving remembrance ceremony led by then president Hollande on April 25, Mr Cardiles said the killer would “not have my hatred”, echoing the words of the husband of a victim of the November 2015 attacks in the French capital.
“I have no hatred, Xavier, because it is not like you and does not fit with what made your heart beat nor what made you a guardian of the peace,” he said.
Mr Jugele was the fifth policeman slain by jihadists in attacks that have claimed more than 230 lives across France since January 2015.
Mr Hollande posthumously made him a knight of the Legion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest honours.
After Jugele’s death it emerged that he had been one the first responders at the Bataclan theatre in Paris where IS massacred 90 concert goers. — AFP
Partner of a gay policeman gunned down by a jihadist on Paris’s ChampsElysees avenue in April married him posthumously
Former president Francois Hollande and Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo attended the wedding