Shooting Rampage In France

A heavily armed man who often spoke to his mother about killing himself and others gunned down eight officials at a city council meeting early Wednesday and wounded 19 others, ending the carnage with pleas to end his own life.

"Kill me, kill me," said 33-year-old Richard Durn after methodically aiming and firing two semiautomatic Glock pistols at the close of six hours of budget talks at Nanterre's city hall, in suburban Paris.

The portrait of the suspect that emerged from police interrogation and from his mother was that of a deeply disturbed man with a love of guns and a history of failure.

Still, the drama in Nanterre, a working class suburb, jolted the nation as it grapples with rising crime, the focus of campaigning for presidential elections less than a month away.

By evening, hundreds of people had gathered at city hall, laying flowers in the lobby where pictures of the dead council members were placed. Bloodstains still marked the floor. The flag above city hall was flying at half staff.

Four women and four men - communists, rightists and an ecologist - died in the shootings. Up to six victims remained in serious condition, officials said.

However, Durn's mother said her son was fulfilling a death wish - likely targeting no one in particular.

She said her son had spoken to her "many times ... probably 10 to 20 times" about killing people.

"I don't think he was specifically targeting anyone," said Stephanie Durn, 65, who came to France from Slovenia in 1958.

Mrs. Durn, who works as a cleaning woman, spoke to reporters through the front door mail slot of the modest two-story brick home she shared with her son, who had undergone psychiatric treatment over the years.

"When he first went into psychotherapy in 1990, he asked the psychiatrist, 'Help me to die,'" his mother said.

France 2 television reported that police found a 13-page letter at Durn's home recounting a failed life and saying he was disgusted with himself and with Nanterre and wanted police to kill him.

Durn was armed with the two Glocks and a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver, which was never used, police said. He had more than 100 rounds of ammunition on him. Some 50 shells were scattered on the floor of the meeting room after the fusillade.

The assailant was initially subdued after an official threw a chair at him, but he started firing again with his free hand.

He shouted out: "Kill me, kill me!" Nanterre Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse said later.

Prosecutor Yves Bot said Durn had told police during a day of interrogation that "on several occasions, he had thought about killing someone and killing himself afterward."

"According to him, this was a way for him to take control of his destiny," Bot said, adding that Durn held a Masters degree in political science.

Durn at one point held a part-time job as a hall monitor at a local school, his mother said. He had failed several exams for teaching and other positions, the prosecutor said.

Starting in 1998, Durn made several stints to Bosnia with relief organizations, Bot said. He was currently treasurer with the local chapter of the Human Rights League.

Durn, with no criminal record, had a gun permit and practiced target shooting for six years at a club in the Garenne-Colombes district. He renewed his permit every year, most recently on Jan. 28.

"It seems he regularly practiced shooting, and he never caused any problems to the club," said Alain Joly, an official at the French federation governing the sport.

President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Lionel Jospin both made pre-dawn visits to the scene of the shooting drama, which Jospin called "apparently a case of furious dementia."

It is "a horrifying tragedy that harms democracy - a city council meeting in action," Jospin said.

The council meeting had ended quietly when the shooting began.

"He had been sitting in the public area. He shot straight in front of him, and then he moved to where the council members were sitting," Mayor Fraysse said.

Rising crime has become the top concern of French citizens, according to polls, and Chirac has made it his prime issue as he campaigns for re-election in the April 21 vote.

"Insecurity runs from ordinary incivility to the drama in Nanterre," the president said later Wednesday at a round-table on school violence.

Wednesday's shootings recalled an assault in Switzerland in September by a man who opened fire at a meeting of the Zug state legislature, killing 14 people before killing himself with a handgun.

The Zug government said it would mention the Nanterre killings when the parliament sits Thursday.