France's far-right paid tribute to a writer and activist who shot himself dead in front of the altar of Paris's famed Notre Dame Cathedral after denouncing gay marriage and immigration.
Police confirmed the man's identity as Dominique Venner, 78, an essayist and activist linked with France's far-right and nationalist group.
He shot himself with a pistol shortly after 1400 GMT yesterday and the cathedral, which at the time contained about 1,500 people, was then evacuated without incident, they said.
Venner left a message, which was read out by a friend after his death on the conservative station Radio Courtoisie, and a final essay on his website.
They denounced both the recently passed law legalising gay marriage and immigration from Africa.
"I believe it is necessary to sacrifice myself to break with the lethargy that is overwhelming us," he said in the message read out on the radio.
"I am killing myself to awaken slumbering consciences."
Venner's publisher, Pierre-Guillaume de Roux, said the writer's death had "an extremely strong symbolic power that approximates (Yukio) Mishima".
Mishima, considered one of modern Japan's most important authors, killed himself in a dramatic, samurai-style disembowelment at a Self Defence Force camp in Tokyo in 1970 at age 45 in a political protest.
Venner's next book, due out in June, was titled "A Western Samurai", his publisher added.
Venner's suicide was hailed by Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right Front National (FN), as a political gesture.
"All respect to Dominique Venner whose final, eminently political act was to try to wake up the people of France," Le Pen said on Twitter, though she added later that "it is in life and hope that France will renew and save itself".
About a hundred far-right sympathisers gathered in the square in front of the cathedral to pay tribute to Venner yesterday.
