Lt-Col Arnaud Beltrame, a practising Catholic, was shot and stabbed after he traded places with one of the captives following a shooting spree in southern France. His brother Cedric said his actions were ‘beyond the call of duty’. France's gendarmerie honoured its fallen comrade, saying Col Beltrame ‘gave his life for the freedom of the hostages’. His sacrifice was compared with that of St Maximilian Kolbe, who in 1941 volunteered to take the place of a fellow prisoner condemned to death at Auschwitz. Beltrame and his fiancée, Marielle, were shortly to marry.