Judges unknowingly give top honors to victim of Paris attacks

Judges for one of the most prestigious awards in the international advertising industry unknowingly gave top honors to a man who was killed in the Paris attacks just days before.

Fabrice Dubois, 46, of France, served as the copywriter on an animated video advertisement "Go anywhere, Go everywhere" with the Publicis Counseil advertising agency in Paris where his LinkedIn profile says he worked for nearly 13 years.

Dubois was one of two employees at Publicis Counseil killed in Le Bataclan, the Parisian theater where more than 100 people were held hostage. Four gunmen entered the front of the 1,500-seat theater, dressed all in black and armed with AK-47 rifles, calmly opened fire randomly at patrons who dived for cover on the floor. Eighty-nine people died in the concert hall.

"It is with a mixture of sadness and pride that we learn have won gold in the Epica Awards in category animation film," Publicis Counseil wrote on its Facebook page.

According to the agency's Twitter account, representatives from Publicis Counseil paid tribute to Dubois's work at the awards ceremony.

Yannick Minvielle, 39, a creative director at the company, was also killed at Le Bataclan and three employees, Stefan Cova, Marjanka Magen and Guillaume Gouin, were injured.

"As unfair as it is, the outcome for Fabrice and Yannick, we must find the courage, the strength to continue to live with each other, with dreams for the future and to find the joy again to build and create," the agency wrote on Facebook.

The day after the attacks, the agency's CEO Valérie Hénaff wrote in French on Twitter: "Publicis Counseil is in mourning. A great man is gone. Regards to all who loved him."

Contributing: Gregg Zoroya and Jayme Deerwester, Paste BN