Hundreds march for slain French police couple

MANTES-LA-JOLIE, France — Some 2,500 people march in silence in honor of a policeman and his domestic partner who were knifed to death by an extremist pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group.

Many in the crowd of police, gendarmes, firefighters and locals weep as they walk from the police station where the couple worked in the Paris suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie to their home in Magnanville where they were killed on Monday.

The attack comes in the midst of the Euro football championship — already dogged by terror fears — and is the first since Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers struck Paris in November, killing 130.

A police officer and a man hold a bouquet on June 15, 2016, outside the house in Magnanville where a man claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group killed a French policeman and his partner on the night of June 13. (AFP Photo/Matthieu Alexandre)

“I don’t feel a form of fear, rather disappointment,” says Alain, the head of a Parisian police unit who has told his officers to “be careful — we have to change our behavior.”

In Monday’s assault, 25-year-old Larossi Abballa, previously convicted for jihadism, killed 42-year-old police commander Jean-Baptiste Salvaing outside his home in Magnanville.

He then entered the house, taking Salvaing’s 36-year-old partner Jessica Schneider and the couple’s three-year-old son hostage, before slitting her throat.

Abballa was later killed in a police raid on the house, where officers found the little boy traumatized but unhurt.

— AFP