More than 700 French security forces had been hunting for 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt since the bloodshed on Tuesday night.

He was believed to have been injured after exchanging fire with soldiers during the attack, but managed to escape and had not been seen since getting out of a taxi in the Neudorf area of the northern French city.

Minutes before he was shot dead on Thursday, a helicopter with powerful searchlight flew over Neudorf.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner told reporters police swooped after the suspect was spotted in the street.

Officers tried to arrest him, but he shot at police. “They immediately returned fire and neutralised the assailant,” Castaner said.

Dozens of police vehicles converged on the area where police were applauded after the shooting. “Bravo!” some shouted as people gathered at the police cordon, a source said.

Police in several other countries earlier joined the manhunt for Chekatt, a Strasbourg native and career criminal with at least 27 convictions in four European states.

Authorities published Chekatt’s picture late Wednesday with police describing him as dangerous and urging people not to approach him.

A fifth person was detained by police for questioning on Thursday, in addition to the suspect’s parents and two brothers who have been in custody since Wednesday.

The Strasbourg Christmas market is due to reopen on Friday.

French President Emmanuel Macron expressed “the solidarity of the whole country” towards the victims as he arrived for a European summit in Brussels on Thursday.

“It is not only France that has been hit… but a great European city as well,” he added, referring to the seat of the European parliament in the eastern French city that lies on the border with Germany.

Plea to ‘yellow vests’ 

As police were hunting Chekatt Thursday, the French government urged “yellow vest” protesters not to hold another round of demonstrations this weekend, given the strain on the country’s security forces.

Government spokesman Benjamin Griveaux called on the anti-government protesters to be “reasonable” and not protest again Saturday, after nearly four weeks of often violent demonstrations which has led the government to offer a range of financial relief to low earners.

“Our security forces have been deployed extensively these past few weeks,” Griveaux told CNews television.

“It would be better if everyone could go about their business calmly on Saturday, before the year-end celebrations with their families, instead of demonstrating and putting our security forces to work once again,” he added.

The “yellow vest” protesters, known for their fluorescent high-visibility jackets, had called for a fifth round of protests this Saturday.

The protests began on November 17 over fuel tax increases, but snowballed into a revolt over living standards as well as Macron’s perceived indifference to the problems of ordinary citizens.

Underscoring attempts to ease tensions, Prime Minister Edouard Philippe confirmed a proposed constitutional reform, which was to be debated in January, had been postponed to allow time for more discussions over local grievances.

Some union leaders also put pressure on “yellow vests” not to demonstrate on Saturday so they would not overburden police as they dealt with security after the Strasbourg attack.

But some demonstrators dismissed the calls to suspend protests.

A 23-year-old protester was killed after he was hit by a truck on a roundabout in southern France near Avignon late on Thursday, the sixth person to have died during the weeks of demonstrations.

Wide search

Strasbourg’s location in the heart of western Europe means that Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg can be easily reached by car or train, making the search for Chekatt more complicated.

Swiss police had reinforced border checks, while German authorities also widely published the photo of the suspect, which showed him with dark hair, a short beard and a visible mark on his forehead.

In 2016, a jihadist responsible for an attack on a Christmas market in Berlin was shot and killed only three days later in Milan in northern Italy after travelling through the Netherlands and France.

The Strasbourg suspect, who lived in a rundown apartment block a short drive from the city centre, was flagged by French security forces in 2015 as a possible Islamic extremist.

France has been hit by a wave of attacks from gunmen claiming allegiance to Al Qaeda or the Islamic State group since 2015, which have claimed the lives of 246 people before Tuesday’s attack, according to an AFP toll.

No group has claimed responsibility for the Strasbourg attack, but social media accounts used by Islamic State sympathisers have celebrated the killings.

    “It’s lame duck for Christmas,” the opposition Labour party-backing Daily Mirror wrote on its front page. The more independent-minded i commuter newspaper said May received a “stay of execution”.

And the Brexit-support The Sun said the “coup plot may lead to (a) historic breakup of the Tory party”. May won the backing of 200 Conservative party MPs in a secret ballot on Wednesday.

But 117 voted against her — a margin that underscored the extent of the opposition from her own ranks to the draft withdrawal agreement May struck with EU leaders last month.

    The no-confidence vote was initiated by staunchly anti-EU MPs in May’s party.

Her deal is also opposed by Labour and smaller opposition parties in parliament that want closer ties with Brussels.

The scale of the resistance — and May’s promise to her party on Wednesday to not contest the 2022 election — made newspapers question the extent of the British leader’s victory.

“Tory coup fails. But scale of rebellion damages May,” said the left-wing The Guardian.

“Theresa May scrapes home,” said The Times.

The traditionally right-wing paper said five minister were now urging May to let parliament “hold a series of ‘indicative’ votes on every conceivable option” of Brexit.

May pulled a vote scheduled for Tuesday on the draft agreed last month with  her 27 EU counterparts because of its certain defeat.

She heads back to Brussels on Thursday in a long-shot bid to wrest concessions that could win her some additional votes.

EU leaders refuse to renegotiate the actual draft but seem willing to offer May non-binding assurances on the main dispute involving measures to prevent the return of a hard border with Ireland.

May has promised to re-submit her Brexit deal for a vote in the House of Commons by January 21.

A viral video making the rounds on social media seemingly falsely depicts Miss USA holding court over Miss Colombia and Miss Australia as she appears to mock Miss Cambodia – Rern Sinat – for her lack of English during rehearsals in Bangkok.

“Miss Cambodia is here and doesn’t speak any English, and not a single person here speaks her language. Francesca [Miss Australia] said that it would be very isolating,” said Sarah Rose Summers from Nebraska, Omaha in the video.

However an anonymous source inside the pageant told The Post: “Actually, Miss Cambodia and Miss Australia are friends, and Miss Australia wants someone to talk to. They knew they were on camera.”

Sinat was said that she was “hurt” after the exchange, but the source said that she “felt better” after learning she had been assigned a translator by the pageant’s organisers.

“A lot of the contestants have a translator,” said the source. “It was a big issue for them last week. But now we’re OK … actually, Miss USA might visit Cambodia next year.”

Miss Australia, Francesca Hung, posted a photograph on Instagram of herself with Sinat with a caption reading: “I’m so upset that this situation has been misconstrued like this … We were merely saying it must be even more difficult at times not to have a single other delegate being able to speak [Khmer] … which in fact, makes Nat [Miss Cambodia] an even stronger contender [for the crown].”

A member from the Cambodian camp requested the pageant’s organisers provide them a translator as the video may have unfairly garnered Rose Summers criticism online.

Sinat previously had to rely on Google Translate to communicate during much of the preliminary rounds in Bangkok. Her team in Phnom Penh (which included a translator who did not travel with her to Thailand) requested organisers provide Miss Cambodia with a translator, who was provided on Wednesday morning.

“It’s difficult because Khmer isn’t a very [widespread] language [while] some of the Latinspeaking girls had two translators,” alleged the source.

The 67th Miss Universe is currently in the preliminary stages. The grand final is set for December 17.

According to latest reports, three people were killed and several injured when a gunman opened fire at the Strasbourg Christmas market on 11 December. The suspect is reported to be at large and the motive for the attack is still unclear.

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