A gendarme, who offered to trade places with a hostage during Friday’s shooting rampage in France, died on Saturday morning from wounds he sustained in the operation. Lieutenant-Colonel Arnaud Beltrame was shot three times and also stabbed, bringing to four the death toll in the attack that took place in the southwestern town of Trebes. "He fell as a hero, giving up his life to halt the murderous outfit of a terrorist," President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement shortly before dawn on Saturday. Beltrame, who would have turned 45 in April, was a qualified parachutist who served in Iraq in 2005. He also worked as part of the elite Republican Guard that protects the presidential Elysee Place offices and residence in Paris, Macron said. Macron said of Beltrame: "In offering himself as a hostage to the terrorist holed up in the Trebes supermarket, lieutenant colonel Beltrame saved the life of a civilian hostage, showing exceptional self-sacrifice and courage." The news of Beltrames death was first announced Interior Minister Gerard Collomb, who said in a Twitter post: "Dead for his country. France will never forget his heroism, bravery and sacrifice." Fridays attacker was identified by authorities as Redouane Lakdim, a 25-year-old Moroccan-born French national from the city of Carcassonne, not far from Trebes, a tranquil town of about 5,000 people where he struck on Friday afternoon. Lakdim was known to authorities for drug-dealing and other petty crimes, but had also been under surveillance by security services in 2016-2017 for links to the radical movement, Paris prosecutor Francois Molins said on Friday. "We had monitored him and did not think he had been radicalized," Collomb said after flying to the scene. His partner, who lived with him in Carcassonne, has been detained, Molins said. A second person was arrested overnight, a judicial source said on Saturday. Another source said the man, a minor born in 2000, was a friend of the gunman. Lakdim, whose rampage began when he shot at a group of police joggers and also shot the occupants of a car he stole, killed three people and injured 16 others on Friday, according to a government readout. The driver of the car remains in critical condition. He then headed to supermarket where he took a number of people hostage. The attacker entered the supermarket saying he was a soldier of ISIS, Molins said. He further demanded "the release of his brothers" from prison before shooting a supermarket customer and an employee dead. "I was five meters away from him," the stores security guard said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He shot at me twice." Luckily for the security guard, "he shot badly." About 50 people were in the supermarket at the time, and though some people managed to escape, several remained inside. Beltrame was part of a team of gendarmes who were among the first to arrive at the supermarket scene. Most of the people in the supermarket escaped after hiding in a cold storage room and then fleeing through an emergency exit. He offered to trade places with a hostage the attacker was still holding, whereafter he took her place and left his mobile phone on a table, line open. When shots rang out, elite police stormed the building to kill the assailant. Police sources said Beltrame was shot three times. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack. Macron has said security services are checking that claim. More than 240 people have been killed in France in attacks since 2015 by assailants who either pledged allegiance to ISIS or were inspired by the terror group. France is part of a group of countries whose warplanes have been bombing ISIS strongholds in Iraq and Syria, where the group has lost substantial ground in recent months. One multiple attack by extremist gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris while another killed close to 90 when a man ran a truck into partying crowds in the Riviera seaside city of Nice. Fridays assault was the first deadly attack since October 2017, when a man stabbed two young women to death in the port city of Marseille before soldiers killed him. Several attacks over the past year or more have targeted police and soldiers deployed in big numbers to protect civilians and patrol sensitive spots such as airports and train stations. A state of emergency put in place just after the 2015 Paris attacks was lifted last October when Macrons centrist government passed a new law boosting the powers of security forces.