Colonel Arnaud Baltrame, 45, was one of the first policemen to arrive where ISIS-linked terrorist Redouane Lakdim, 25, opened fire on shoppers and staff before taking them hostage.

Beltrame too was gunned down during the attack, after he had offered to swap places with a female hostage.

“He volunteered to take the place of the other hostages and has been very seriously wounded,” President Emmanuel Macron said in a televised address.

“He saved lives and did honour to his corps and his country,” Macron added after a meeting with Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and security officials.

Interior Minister Gerard Collomb confirmed his death, saying: “Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame has passed away. He died for his country. France will never forget his heroism,” the minister wrote on his Twitter account.

Collomb praised Beltrame for his “courage” and “act of heroism”.

“They managed to get some of the people out,” he said.

Lakdim kept one female hostage to use as a human shield. Beltrame then offered to take her place.

He knew what he was getting into when he arrived on the scene of the attack because he had been to a terror training scenario of a mass killing in a supermarket in nearby Carcassonne just four months ago.

Beltrame also “left his telephone on the table”, to allow police to hear what was going on inisde the store, Collomb said.

“When we heard shots the GIGN (France’s elite police force) intervened,” Collomb said, adding that the policeman was “seriously injured”.

ENDS

Why is there any debate about how we should deal with Islamic State supporters, particularly those who've gone overseas to fight with them?

Supporting our country's enemy is treason, a capital offence in our system (although the death penalty is off the table).

We in the West have lost so much of our confidence and strength.

Consider the parallels between William Joyce - better known as Lord Haw Haw - and Jihadis.