A gunman killed eight local councillors and wounded 20 others today, coldly targeting terrified officials who scrambled for cover as a town hall meeting in a Paris suburb came to an end.
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"I think if he hadn't have been stopped he would have gone on to kill us all," said Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse, describing an ordeal that threw France's entire political class into a state of deep shock.
Witnesses said the gunman stood up in the public seating area as a meeting of Nanterre town council came to an end at 1.15 a.m. (12.15 a.m. Irish time) and calmy drew a 9mm automatic pistol. Without talking, he began firing at councillors.
The killer acted methodically, moving into the main body of the council chamber and walking - still firing - around one side of the seated officials, who had just concluded an unremarkable budget debate, Ms Fraysse said.
Four of the dead were women and the councillors came from all sides of the political spectrum in Nanterre, which has a Communist administration.
He drew a second Glock automatic and killed deliberately, firing through the chairs and tables as officials took cover. After his arrest police found a third handgun, a large calibre revolver, that had not been used.
"When you come armed with two fast-firing automatic weapons and seven magazines of bullets, and you sit for six hours and then you get up and start firing methodically, I think the intention was to kill them all," prosecutor Yves Bot said.
After several minutes of firing one of the councillors threw a chair at the attacker as his colleagues rushed him and, although at least one of them was seriously wounded, managed to stop him shooting, witnesses said.
"He said nothing during the whole session, or before he opened fire. When he was being held down he cried 'kill me, kill me'," Ms Fraysse told reporters.
One councillor, 45-year-old Samuel Rijik, said he managed to flee during the carnage and raced to the nearby police station to summon help.
Fire brigade Captain Laurent Vibert said: "You've got to imagine the scene: people were hiding everywhere behind chairs. There were several bodies on the floor, and blood and cartridges too. It was the vision of a massacre."
Emergency crews said that several of the councillors and at least one muncipal employee had multiple bullet wounds. "There were 50 bullet impacts in the room," Mr Vibert said.
The attacker was identified as Richard Durn, 33, who lives in Nanterre with his mother. Bot said he was a sports shooting enthusiast who had a licence for the guns and had no criminal record.
Police said he had worked on humanitarian missions in Kosovo and Bosnia. He has been detained for interrogation at police headquarters in Paris, but has not proved talkative, police said.
The public has free access to council meetings in Nanterre and visitors are never searched. Durn arrived at the meeting with other members of the public late last night but was alone in the public gallery when it ended.
AFP