Chirac urges action after 7 die in new blaze

PARIS - French President Jacques Chirac ordered action on fire safety after seven immigrants, including four children, died in a blaze in a rundown building in Paris.

Monday night's fire raised questions about the government's housing policies as it came three days after 17 African immigrants died in another blaze in Paris. Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy requested all squats in the capital be closed.

Chirac expressed his horror at the latest fire, offered his condolences to bereaved families and ordered a prompt investigation into what he called "another dreadful fire".

"What seems to me to be vital today, after this second drama, is that we, together with all the relevant authorities ... take the measures needed to avoid dramas such as this," he said during a visit to the city of Reims, northeast of Paris.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin would shortly announce strong new measures, Chirac said. The prime minister's office said an official inquiry into the fire was under way.

Sarkozy asked for dilapidated Paris apartments to be closed.

"All these squats and all these buildings must be closed to stop these tragedies, and that is what I have asked of the chief of police," he said in Reims, where he was accompanying Chirac.

Sarkozy did not say where the government would put the thousands of immigrants.

Fire fighters struggled for an hour to bring Monday night's blaze under control after it broke out in the stairwell of a building in the historic Marais district, fire officials said.

Some terrified residents jumped from windows to escape the flames.

A fire brigade spokesman said six people died at the scene and a hospital spokeswoman said a child who fell from the building died from injuries.

Five fire fighters were among 13 people injured. Two people were in a serious condition in hospital.

Investigators were not ruling out the possibility that criminal activity was behind the fires on both Friday and Monday, the assistant director of the police's criminal investigation department in Paris told a news conference.

- REUTERS