Calls for Jean-Marine Le Pen to resign about comments over gay policeman killed in Paris

Emmanuel Macron's party has demanded the resignation of Marine Le Pen's father from the far-right Front National party after he made homophobic remarks about Xavier Jugele, the policeman shot and killed in the recent terror attack in Paris.

Jean-Marie Le Pen, the founder of the National Front (FN), criticised a speech made at the remembrance service by Jugele's partner.

"It seemed to me that there was something dubious about this ceremony.

"The long speech he made in some way institutionalised homosexual marriage, exalted it in a public way, and that shocked me," Le Pen senior, 88, said in an interview published on his website.

He added: "I think this domestic peculiarity should be kept away from this kind of ceremony, which itself would gain more discretion."

Macron's En Marche! party hit back at Le Pen's comments. "I am asking the candidate to put an end immediately to the duties Jean-Marie Le Pen still carries at the FN," Benjamin Grivaux, Macron's spokesman, was quoted as saying.

Etienne Cardiles, spoke at a remembrance ceremony on 25 April which was led by President François Hollande at Paris police headquarters. Cardiles told the crowd: "I'm suffering without hate.

"When I first got messages saying something had happened on the Champs Elysees, and that a policeman had died, a small voice told me it was you, and brought back to me that generous and healing phrase: 'You will not have my hatred.'

"I don't feel hatred, Xavier, because it is not like you – because it does not correspond to anything that made your heart beat, nor why you entered the police force.

"Because public service, helping others and protecting everyone was part of your education and your convictions – and tolerance, dialogue and patience."

Xavier Jugele was identified as Flag! A French association of LGBT police officers. Jugele would have celebrated his 38<sup>th birthday at the start of May, the group's president Mickael Bucheron told AP.

The gunman who shot dead Jugele on the Champs Elysee was named as French national Karim Cheurfi. Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Isis, according to a Reuters report.