France: Fifteen people, including three children, were killed in a blaze in a low-income housing project south of Paris on Saturday night, bringing to 63 the number killed in four fires since April. Most of the victims have been African immigrants.
The most recent fire started around 1am yesterday in an 18-storey apartment building at L'Hay-les-Roses, near Orly airport south of Paris. "The first indications point to a fire caused by a criminal act," Patrick Seve, the mayor of L'Hay-les-Roses, said.
"The fire started in the entry and the staircase. Witnesses apparently saw young people from this building start the fire. Then the smoke rose."
Three young women, two of whom lived in the building, were detained last night. Witnesses said the arsonists set fire to letter-boxes. Arson against cars and other property is a common occurrence in France's mainly immigrant suburbs. Dozens of riot police remained parked outside the building after the fire, and the mood was tense.
Most of the victims choked or suffocated in extremely high temperatures after opening their doors. "The people who stayed inside were fine," deputy fire chief Alain Antonini said.
"It's the people who rushed out and ran into temperatures of 300 degrees Celsius, smoke and asphyxia, that caused the terrible toll."
Police arrived before the fire engines, and shouted to panicked residents: "Don't jump! Help is on the way!"
Some 800 people lived in the 110 local authority flats. Many saw the bodies of neighbours being carried out by firemen. A woman gave birth to a healthy baby boy in an ambulance.
Although it was the third fatal blaze in nine days, the fire this weekend appears unconnected to those that killed 24 Africans on August 26th and 29th.
"This is a block of flats. It's got nothing to do with the fires in the Paris squats," a fire service spokesman said.
On Friday, the Paris prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation into the August 26th fire, near the Gare d'Austerlitz, citing "wilful destruction by the use of fire leading to death".
The August 29th fire, in a squat in the Marais district, appears more likely to have been caused by faulty electrical wiring.
Interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy last week gave orders that squatters be evicted from all unsafe buildings.
Some 150 Africans were forcibly moved by police from two buildings on Friday. The government intends to evacuate 60 more Paris buildings.
On Saturday, between 5,000 and 10,000 people, many of them African, demonstrated against what they say is government prejudice and discrimination against immigrants.