Macron pays tribute to Strasbourg terrorism victims

France French President Emmanuel Macron and local dignitaries have paid tribute to the victims of the deadly attack at the Strasbourg Christmas market, which reopened on Friday, Courant.com reports.

Visiting the old city's Place Kleber, not far from the scene of Tuesday's attack, Macron laid a single white rose near other floral tributes.

Macron stood in silence for a minute, and then the French national anthem rang out around the square.

The president then greeted dignitaries, police and emergency workers before visiting the market.

Macron, returning from an EU summit in Brussels, also met soldiers who had shot at and injured the suspected attacker during his rampage, a source in the Elysee palace said.

A day after the suspect 29-year-old Cherif Chekatt was shot dead by police, the French government downgraded its terrorism alert status from the highest level back to medium.

There would still be reinforced checks at gatherings such Christmas markets, the government said on its official Twitter account.

But the return to normality was marred by the death of a fourth victim.

The latest fatality was Italian journalist Antonio Megalizzi, sources in the Italian Foreign Ministry said.

A fifth victim is brain-dead.

Interior Minister Christophe Castaner earlier said that the decision to reopen the Strasbourg Christmas market had been made before Chekatt was killed.

"And we took that decision for the honor of Strasbourg, for the honor of France," Castaner said. "So that, in the face of attacks as violent as the one we suffered on Tuesday, we can show that our country, our republic, can hold its head high."

France's top anti-terrorism prosecutor, Remy Heitz, gave more details of the suspected gunman's last minutes.

Two members of the public had spotted Chekatt in the Neudorf area, where a taxi driver had dropped him off after he made his getaway on Tuesday.

Police patrolling the area noticed a man matching his description, who pretended to be entering a building when he saw their marked car.

When the officers hailed him, he shot at them, hitting their car. They returned fire, killing him.

Chekatt, 29, was on a state security watch list and had a long criminal record for non-terrorism offenses, mainly theft and acts of violence, in Germany, Switzerland and France.

French prison authorities had observed him trying to spread extremist ideas while in jail in 2015.

Authorities are treating the attack as an act of terrorism, but Castaner dismissed a claim of responsibility by the Islamic State extremist organization as "totally opportunistic."

Seven people are now being held for questioning as police try to work out whether Chekatt had any accomplices before the attack or during his two days on the run, Heitz said.

They include four members of Chekatt's family and three close associates, two of whom were arrested Thursday night.

The Strasbourg attack was the third deadly act of terrorism in France this year.

In May, a Chechen-born French citizen killed one man and injured five other people in a knife rampage in central Paris.

Two months earlier, a petty criminal turned Islamist terrorist killed four people, including a gendarmerie officer who had given himself up in exchange for a civilian hostage, in southern France.

In 2015 and 2016 more than 230 people were killed in terrorist attacks in France, most of which were claimed by Islamic State.