The Nanterre massacre refers to an act of mass murder that occurred on March 27, 2002, in the Nanterre commune of Paris, France. 33-year-old gunman Richard Durn opened fire at the end of a council meeting, resulting in the deaths of 8 councilors, and the injuries of 19 others. Durn committed suicide the following day, by leaping from a police station window during questioning.

The shooting

At approximately 1:15 a.m. (CEST), at the Nanterre town hall, following a meeting of the municipal council chaired by Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse, Richard Durn rose from his seat, removed firearms previously hidden under his jacket, and opened fire. Durn killed eight councilors and injured 19 others; 14 critically, before being overpowered by Gerard Perreau-Bezouille and other councilors. Once overpowered, Durn began shouting, "Kill me!"

Following events

Durn was interrogated at the police station at 36 Quai des Orfèvres, Paris, on March 28. After confessing, Durn committed suicide by throwing himself from the fourth floor window.

Durn had sent a letter to a friend in which he explained his plan: "Because I have by my own will become a kind of living-dead, I have decided to end it all by killing a small local elite which is the symbol of, and who are the leaders and decision makers in, a city that I have always detested." He explained that he intended to kill the mayor, "and then as many people as possible [...] I will become a serial killer, a mad killer. Why? Because I am frustrated and I do not want to die alone, because I have had a shitty life. I want to feel powerful and free just once."

The perpetrator

The perpetrator in the shootings was Richard Durn, 33, who was originally from Slovenia. He held a Masters degree in political science and a degree in history. According to the police, Durn was an environmental activist, and a former member of the Socialist Party before joining the Greens. He was also a member of the Ligue des droits de l'homme.

Response

An official tribute was paid to the victims on April 2, in the presence of President Jacques Chirac, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant.

Impact

The massacre was discussed by French philosopher Bernard Stiegler in his book, Acting Out. Stiegler argues that Durn's feeling of non-existence was symptomatic of a society which tends to destroy the love of oneself and others, and that Durn's actions represent a "hyper-diachronic" acting out which is made possible by this feeling of non-existence.

Wikipedia.org

Gunman kills 8 after city council meeting

Watertown Daily Times

March 27, 2002

A man calmly opened fire at a city council meeting in this Paris suburb early today, methodically killing eight people and injuring nearly 20 others in an attack the prime minister called a "a case of furious dementia."

Police arrested Richard Durn, 33, a local man who witnesses said frequently attended council meetings. He used two automatic pistols and a revolver, police said.

Witnesses said the attacker opened fire without a word, shooting with both hands at about 40 people.

Gunman kills 8, hurts 30 near Paris

Times Union

March 27, 2002

NANTERRE, France -- A man opened fire with automatic pistols at the end of a city council meeting in a Paris suburb early today, killing at least eight people and wounding about 30 others, including 14 seriously.

Police arrested the suspect, who was described as someone who was active in local politics and had attended several council meetings. The man did not speak during the shooting and did not make any clear statement when he was arrested, officials said.

'Kill me,' gunman shouts at meeting

Suicide try in France leaves 8 officials dead

The Record (New Jersey)

March 28, 2002

Armed with two Glock semiautomatics, a .357 Magnum, and an apparent death wish, a 33-year-old unemployed Frenchman shot and killed eight city officials Wednesday and wounded 19 others.

Nanterre Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse said the attacker yelled out, "Kill me, kill me" as he was subdued in the council chamber in this Paris suburb.

French town reels after 8 are killed at meeting

Lexington Herald-Leader

March 28, 2002

NANTERRE, France -- A shooting early yesterday that killed eight people and wounded 19 others left this working-class Paris suburb numb.

Witnesses said the lone gunman sat quietly through a six-hour City Council budget meeting that began Tuesday night, then advanced wordlessly with a gun in each hand and opened fire.

He took aim at about 40 city officials who were putting on their coats as the meeting ended, a little after 1 a.m. About 50 shells were found scattered across the floor.

Accused killer jumps to death in France

Rampage suspect was in police custody

The Washington Post

March 29, 2002

A man who police say shot eight officials dead Wednesday at a city council meeting killed himself today by jumping out a window at police headquarters. The successive deaths have jolted a nation that is trying to grapple with rising crime, a focus of the country's presidential campaign. Richard Durn, 33, was being questioned at the Paris headquarters when he bounded toward a fifth-floor window and struggled out of the grasp of two officers who tried to pull him back inside, police said.

French killer's 'bin Laden wish'

CNN.com

March 29, 2002

PARIS, France -- The French loner who killed eight local councillors then leapt to his death from a Paris police headquarters left a suicide note saying he wanted to be as hated as Osama bin Laden, according a French press report.

"I want to have the same stature as bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Milosevic...," Richard Durn, 33, wrote, said the daily Le Parisien on Friday.

A female friend said she received the letter on Wednesday after he had gunned down the councillors in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

"I've decided to put an end to my life, but before that, I'm going to be a serial killer," he wrote in the letter quoted in the newspaper.

"I've gone mad, become a drop out and therefore I must die," he wrote in a long testament found at his home, the daily Liberation reported. "For months now, thoughts of carnage and death have filled my head."

In a farewell letter to his mother, Reuters reported that Durn wrote: "Mama, I should have died a long time ago. I don't know what to do with my life, not even how to die without hurting others.

"But now, I'm fed up with this cowardice... I should die at least with the feeling of being free and getting a kick out of it. That's why I should kill some people. For once in my life, I'll have an orgasm."

His final words in the letter to his mother were: "Be happy and brave, especially with all the idiots who'll hassle you. Love, Richard."

Lone gunman kills eight in Paris rampage

NANTERRE, France - A lone gunman has calmly opened fire at a town council meeting in northwest Paris, killing eight and badly wounding 19 less than a month before a presidential election where crime is the crunch issue.

Police arrested 33-year-old Richard Durn, who they said was an unemployed man who sprayed bullets at the late-night council meeting in the suburb of Nanterre in a bid to end his life and gain attention.

"He said during questioning he went there to end his life but that he did not want to die anonymously," a police source said. Durn, who the source said had been receiving treatment for depression, was overpowered by survivors.

President Jacques Chirac and challenger Prime Minister Lionel Jospin raced to the scene, denouncing the massacre as an act of madness in a country where such mass shootings are rare and the issue of gun control is seldom raised.

However Chirac later said it followed a pattern of rising lawlessness in a comment some will interpret as an attack on the Socialist Jospin's government and its record on crime.

"The breakdown of law and order extends from everyday crime to the drama we saw during the night in Nanterre," Chirac said at a seminar on violence in French schools in the town of Savigny-sur-Orge, south of the capital.

Witnesses said Durn fired randomly at council members from the public gallery at 1:15 a.m. local time after Nanterre Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse, a member of the Communist Party that has long held the municipality, closed the meeting.

"We were about to leave when suddenly a man got up and started shooting straight ahead," Fraysse told reporters. The victims were mostly young men and women councillors. Four were members of the Communist Party.

Campaign Fodder

Police said Durn fired three guns -- two Glock automatic handguns and a .357 magnum Smith & Wesson. The incident prompted isolated calls to reexamine French gun laws. Durn had no criminal record and had licenses for the weapons as an amateur marksman.

Chirac and Jospin, almost neck-and-neck in the two-round race for the presidency on April 21 with a May 5 runoff, have both pledged to tackle what many French see as rising violence.

Despite Chirac's linking the attack to such fears, Jospin's Socialists warned the right not to use the killing as campaign fodder. Jospin, whom Chirac has called soft on crime, said the attack was an "act of madness" difficult to prevent.

Durn, of Yugoslav origin, had no criminal record and had visited Kosovo on aid missions. He was also treasurer of a local human rights group. Those who knew him called him an outsider.

"He was involved in lots of groups and associations but he was quiet, wouldn't say much," said a woman who knew him from a theatre group five years ago. "One day he would say hello to you and the next he would ignore you."

One witness said the gunman was a member of France's Green party and regularly attended council meetings.

But a spokeswoman for the Greens, who form part of Jospin's ruling coalition, denied any links.

Law and order has repeatedly scored in polls as the top concern for voters ahead of the presidential election.

Chirac has backed a "zero tolerance" policy for criminals and blamed Jospin's government for a rising crime wave now filling the media with daily reports of teenage murderers, serial rapists and street theft.

The last such mass shooting in France occurred in the central city of Tours in October 2001, when a man with a shotgun killed four people and wounded seven.

Frenchman kills 8 at city meeting

19 wounded in 'unimaginable drama'

NANTERRE, France – A part-time school hall monitor armed with semiautomatic pistols sat silently through a six-hour city council meeting Wednesday, then rose and methodically killed eight city officials. As he was restrained he shouted: "Kill me, kill me!"

Nineteen people in the city council chamber were wounded in the attack in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.

A shocked Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, who rushed to the scene in the early morning darkness, called the shooting rampage "a case of furious dementia."

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

President Jacques Chirac, who met with grieving family members, described the events as "a completely unimaginable drama."

Rightist presidential candidate Alain Madelin called the shooting, "This American-style byproduct, we wished not to have in France."

Police arrested 33-year-old Richard Durn, who often attended council meetings. Officials said they knew of no motive for the attack. Durn did not speak as he shot his victims, nor did he make a statement as he was arrested. He did shout "kill me, kill me!" as he was subdued before police arrived to make the arrest, said Nanterre Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse.

Acquaintances said Durn had trouble keeping a job. He collected unemployment and worked part-time at a nearby elementary school as a hall monitor, Le Monde newspaper reported. He also volunteered at the local branch of France's Human Rights League.

"There was nothing to suggest this man would do such an act, he had never drawn attention to himself," Michel Tubiana, the league's president, was quoted in Le Monde.

The attacker fired two semiautomatic Glock pistols and was also armed with a Smith & Wesson .357 magnum revolver, which was never used, police said. Some 50 shells were scattered on the floor of the meeting room after the fusillade.

"I thought it was a joke at first," said Samuel Rijik, a municipal official who was at the meeting. "Some people thought it was firecrackers." He said the shooter was firing two weapons at once.

"I crawled under my table and a bullet went through my jacket. I thought I was hit," Rijik said.

The assailant was eventually subdued by others in the room after one official threw a chair at him. That official was then seriously wounded when the suspect started firing again with his free hand. No police were present during the attack.

She said she didn't know the attacker and that there had been no heated debate at the meeting which 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." The man had waited until there were only officials and bureaucrats left in the room, she said.

"He said nothing," she said. "It was long. It lasted many minutes."

The murderous rampage did not appear politically motivated as both municipal officials from both ends of the political spectrum were killed. Durn was described as a member of an ecology movement.

"He was somebody opposed to the directives of the city hall," said Christian Demercaster, a municipal official from the Green Party who said he'd greeted the attacker before the session. He said Durn wasn't a Green Party member.

The suspect had no criminal record and had a permit for his guns, which he'd bought in 1997 and used for recreational shooting, prosecutors said. His permit came from a gun association.

Durn had been practicing shooting regularly for six years at a club in the Garenne-Colombes region. He had 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.

Weeping family members of the victims arrived to identify the bodies, which still lay in the council bloodstained hall Wednesday morning, hours after the shooting. The flag above the building flew at half staff.

Of the 19 wounded, five or six were in grave condition, and the rest were more moderately hurt, authorities said. Others were treated for shock.

The rampage took occurred about 1:15 a.m. as about 40 people attending the meeting put on their coats to leave. Nanterre is a working-class neighborhood near a business district of western Paris.

Dozens of police vehicles and more than 100 rescue officials rushed to the scene. A rescue helicopter took some of the wounded to a nearby hospital.

The issue of crime is at the top of France's political agenda ahead of presidential elections in the spring.

Thousands of police officers held nationwide strikes in December, saying they deserve more pay and better equipment because their jobs have become increasingly risky. The protests started after two officers were shot and killed during an armed robbery in a Paris suburb in October.

In October, a masked gunman opened fire in the central French city of Tours, killing four people.

In an assault in Switzerland last September, a 57-year-old man opened fire with an assault rifle at a meeting of a state legislature, killing 14 people before killing himself with a handgun.

Gun rampage raises crime fears in France

ANXIETY at violent crime boiled over in France yesterday after a gunman went on the rampage in a suburban Paris council chamber, killing eight members and wounding 19 people.

The killing spree at Nanterre, on the city’s western outskirts, stunned a country in the midst of a presidential campaign dominated by concern over soaring violence and a breakdown in law and order.

Police were questioning Richard Durn, 33, an unemployed university graduate with a history of psychiatric illness, who was detained after firing at councillors at the end of a session in the early hours yesterday. The dead included four women members of the Communist-run council. Fourteen of the wounded were in a serious condition.

There was widespread outrage that M Durn, who had worked as a school playground monitor and was a human rights activist, held a licence for his three guns despite his psychiatric record. No action had been taken after M Durn, a member of a shooting club, had used a handgun to hold up a municipal health centre in 1998, according to media reports.

Police said M Durn told them that he had wanted to commit suicide and had decided to take others with him. His mother, with whom he lived in Nanterre, confirmed that he had spoken of suicide.

Lionel Jospin, the Socialist Prime Minister, and President Chirac led a rush of politicians to Nanterre to voice horror over an act that struck at the heart of France’s elected local government.

The killings inevitably played into the campaign for the two-round presidential elections, which start on April 21. M Jospin, who visited Nanterre two hours after the massacre, was thrown on the defensive because his Government has been criticised by M Chirac — his main rival — for its alleged laxness about crime.

The Prime Minister, visibly shocked, called the rampage “a case of furious dementia, a horrifying tragedy that harms democracy”. He later denounced opponents who were making political points over the killings.

“One must not compare events which are not the same. It will always be extremely difficult to deal with an act of madness ... the objective of law and order must not be an electoral issue,” he said.

While M Jospin cast the massacre as a freak incident, M Chirac implied that it was part of a larger crime picture when he arrived on M Jospin’s heels at Nanterre and met grieving relatives. The shooting was “a completely unimaginable drama”, he said, adding: “These acts cannot be qualified as human and everything must be done to suppress and prevent them.”

L’insecurité is the top buzzword in the electoral campaign. Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far right National Front candidate who is running third in the opinion polls, ridiculed M Chirac for “always arriving at the scene of the crime between the ambulances and the media”.

While the political storm raged, the Green party, which is a member of the Jospin coalition, distanced itself from M Durn.

The gunman, whose family immigrated to France from Slovenia, had worked as a volunteer for the Nanterre Greens in municipal elections last year. He had earlier been associated with the Socialists, but officials of both groups said that he had been kept at arm’s length because he had been considered unbalanced.

M Durn had not held down a full-time job since graduating with a master’s degree in politics from Nanterre University. He was, however, the treasurer of the local branch of the Human Rights League and had visited the former Yugoslavia on humanitarian missions, it emerged. He had been a familiar figure at recent council meetings, sitting quietly in the public gallery.

Dr Christian Demercaster, a Green party councillor, had greeted M Durn at the start of Tuesday night’s session. He said: “He was somebody opposed to the directives of the city hall.”

Paris gunman commits suicide

PARIS — The suspect in a shooting rampage that left eight officials dead at a city council meeting killed himself today by jumping out a window at police headquarters, another shock to a country already reeling from the carnage a day earlier.

Richard Durn, 33, bounded suddenly toward a fifth-floor window at the Paris headquarters while he was being questioned and struggled out of the grasp of two officers who tried to pull him back inside, police said.

"The two officers tried to hold him by his legs, but the determination of the crazed gunman, most of whose body was already hanging outside, made their attempt fruitless," a police statement said.

Prosecutors opened an immediate inquiry into Durn's death, as did the Justice and Interior ministries. Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant said the suspect's death seemed to him "a case of serious malfunctioning" on the part of the police.

"I can tell you that if there was proven malfunctioning, sanctions will be taken," he told France-2 television.

One survivor of the massacre expressed disappointment that Durn would never stand trial.

"I would have liked to know the truth about his past ... to know where the fault lines were," said Samuel Rijik, a municipal official who hid under a table to save himself during the massacre at city hall in suburban Nanterre, near Paris.

After Durn's death leap today, his uncovered body remained sprawled on the ground in the courtyard of the police building as officials photographed the scene. He was lying on his back, his face bloodied, and he was wearing only one shoe, possibly as a result of the struggle.

The suspect's apparent suicide brought further shock to a country already stunned by Wednesday's rampage.

Durn, who was unemployed but volunteered at a human-rights organization and had a master's degree in political science, had been in police custody since killing eight officials at the Nanterre city council meeting at about 1:15 a.m. Wednesday. Another 19 people were wounded.

The massacre prompted questions over a how a man with a troubled past was licensed to carry handguns, despite strict French gun-control laws. Durn belonged to a recreational shooting club, and had come to city hall armed with two Glock semiautomatics and a .357 Magnum.

Now, the question gripping the country is how Durn was able to kill himself while in police custody.

"How can you kill yourself at police headquarters?" asked Lucien Batard, Nanterre's deputy mayor, shortly after Durn's death.

"I didn't think someone at criminal police headquarters would have so much liberty of movement that he could jump out a window," Batard said on French radio, adding that he felt sickened that Durn was able to carry his plan through to the end: "He killed the largest possible number of elected officials and he killed himself afterward."

After Wednesday's shooting, police found a 13-page letter at Durn's home, recounting a failed life and saying he was disgusted with himself and Nanterre and wanted police to kill him.

Nanterre Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse said the attacker yelled out, ``Kill me, kill me" as he was brought under control in the council chamber in the Paris suburb. And during a day of interrogation, Durn told police he often "thought about killing someone and killing himself afterward."

Durn's 65-year-old mother, Stephanie, said her son began psychotherapy in 1990, asking the therapist to "Help me to die."

Durn had no criminal record. His mother said her son once held a part-time job as a hall monitor at a local school. A prosecutor said Durn had failed several exams for teaching and other positions.

Beginning in 1998, the prosecutor said, Durn made several trips to Bosnia with relief organizations and was currently volunteering as Nanterre chapter treasurer of the Human Rights League.

French Gunman Jumps To His Death

The suspect in a shooting rampage that left eight people dead at a city council meeting in suburban Paris killed himself Thursday by jumping out a window at police headquarters, police said.

The gunman was being questioned by a police captain in the Criminal Brigade building in Paris, reports CBS News Correspondent Elaine Cobbe. Suddenly, he got up and rushed to the small window in the room, climbed up and threw himself out. He fell five floors to the courtyard below, where he died a few minutes later.

Richard Durn's apparent suicide brought another shock to a country already reeling from the rampage a day earlier at the city hall in suburban Nanterre.

"The two officers tried to hold him by his legs, but the determination of the crazed gunman, most of whose body was already hanging outside, made their attempt fruitless," a police statement said.

Durn, 33, was known to be depressive and suicidal. Police found a 13-page letter at his home, in which he said he wanted to kill himself, and he wanted it to be a public act.

Durn, who was unemployed but volunteered at a human rights organization and had a master's degree in political science, had been in police custody since killing eight officials at the Nanterre city council meeting early Wednesday. Another 19 people were injured.

The massacre prompted questions over a how a man with a troubled past was licensed to carry handguns, despite strict French gun-control laws. Durn belonged to a recreational shooting club, and had come to city hall armed with two Glock semiautomatics and a .357 Magnum.

Now, the question sure to grip the country is how Durn was able to kill himself while in police custody.

"How can you kill yourself at police headquarters?" asked Lucien Batard, Nanterre's deputy mayor, shortly after Durn's death.

"I didn't think someone at criminal police headquarters would have so much liberty of movement that he could jump out a window," Batard said on French radio, adding that he felt sickened that Durn was able to carry his plan through to the end: "He killed the largest possible number of officials and he killed himself afterward."

One survivor of the massacre expressed disappointment that Durn would never stand trial.

"I would have liked to know the truth about his past...to know where the fault lines were," said Samuel Rijik, a municipal official who hid under a table to save himself during the massacre at city hall in suburban Nanterre, near Paris.

Nanterre Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse said the attacker yelled out, "Kill me, kill me" as he was brought under control in the council chamber in the Paris suburb. And during a day of interrogation, Durn told police he often "thought about killing someone and killing himself afterward."

Durn's 65-year-old mother, Stephanie, said her son began psychotherapy in 1990, asking the therapist to "Help me to die."

Durn had no criminal record. His mother said her son once held a part-time job as a hall monitor at a local school. A prosecutor said Durn had failed several exams for teaching and other positions.

Beginning in 1998, the prosecutor said, Durn made several trips to Bosnia with relief organizations and was currently volunteering as Nanterre chapter treasurer of the Human Rights League.

Unemployed, friendless and still living with his mother, Durn had already tried twice to commit suicide. More recently, he decided he wanted to end his days in such a way that he could not be forgotten in death as he felt he had been in life.

In three separate letters sent to acquaintances and left at home, Durn wrote: "I've gone mad, become a drop out and must therefore die."

His mother, a 65-year old Slovenian immigrant who worked as a cleaning lady in the working-class suburb to raise her son and his half-sister, said Durn often spoke of killing people.

"Richard felt worthless, crap, burnt out and a loser. He couldn't bear life any longer," she told the daily Le Parisien. "For him, death was the only solution. But, he didn't want to die alone, he wanted to kill as many people as possible."

A chronic depressive, Durn felt cheated by society.

"The explanation for his act lies in the feeling he had of total personal failure for which he blamed the society in which he lived," Nanterre Public Prosecutor Yves Bot told journalists.

"He said he had been blocked at every turn and used. He wanted to control events, control his life, kill people and then himself."

He drifted from job to job and tried in vain to get involved in local affairs and humanitarian causes. He became increasingly obsessed with guns.

Pupils at the school where he briefly worked as a monitor teased him as bumbling and anti-social.

Psychiatrists said Durn's life and feelings of worthlessness mirrored the backgrounds of other mass murderers.

"Since this type of person cannot bear his existence as a loser, he seeks to make others responsible for his own failures," criminologist Stephane Bourgoin told Le Parisien.

Self-loathing drove Paris gunman

PARIS - Richard Durn, a former school monitor who shot eight people in a Paris suburb council chamber, saw himself as a loser and often talked about killing himself.

Police said Durn, 33, leapt to his death from a window while in custody on Thursday, only 33 hours after turning a local council meeting into a bloodbath.

He was being interviewed on the top floor of the building when he ran to a window, opened it and threw himself out.

Two officers rushed forward and grabbed his legs but Durn, whose only words on being arrested were "Kill me, kill me" and who left a 10-page suicide note at his home, broke free and fell 18m to a paved interior courtyard.

His corpse was left for several hours as investigators tried to discover how Durn got away from the officers.

His death caused disbelief and outrage in Nanterre, where Durn opened fire on a packed council chamber with two Glock machine-pistols early on Wednesday.

"There is no excuse for this suicide," said Jacqueline Fraysse, the mayor. "It is odious, indescribable and unjust. Families will be deprived of justice.

"Councillors wrestled this man down, grabbed his guns and were seriously wounded. Now, in their hospital beds, they learn that he has killed himself. Councillors risked their lives and the police can't even watch him properly."

Daniel Vaillant, the Interior Minister, called the suicide "a serious blunder".

Unemployed, friendless and still living with his mother, Durn had tried twice to commit suicide. He decided he wanted to end his days in such a way that he could not be forgotten in death as he felt he had been in life.

In three letters sent to acquaintances, Durn wrote: "I've gone mad, become a dropout and must therefore die."

His mother, a 65-year-old Slovenian immigrant who worked as a cleaning lady in the working-class suburb to raise her son and his half-sister, said Durn often spoke of killing people.

"Richard felt worthless, crap, burned out and a loser. He couldn't bear life any longer," she told Le Parisien newspaper. "For him, death was the only solution. But, he didn't want to die alone, he wanted to kill as many people as possible."

A chronic depressive, Durn felt cheated by society. He managed to finish university with a history degree but, after failing teaching exams, his life never quite unfolded as he had hoped.

He drifted between jobs and tried to get involved in local affairs and humanitarian causes. Colleagues described him as taciturn. Durn's happiest times were said to have been in Kosovo and Bosnia, where he worked as a humanitarian aid worker.

Guns became a fixation. He belonged to a local shooting club and held licenses for the three guns he carried into the fatal council session.

Durn had no criminal record, despite having twice pulled a gun on psychiatrists counselling him.

Psychiatrists said Durn's life and feelings of worthlessness mirrored the backgrounds of other mass murderers. "Since this type of person cannot bear his existence as a loser, he seeks to make others responsible for his own failures," said criminologist Stephane Bourgoin.

Paris killer leap: Police cleared

PARIS, France -- The French police are not to be held account for the apparent suicide of a killer who fell to his death while in custody, according to justice officials.

Richard Durn is said to have scrambled through a small fourth-floor window in a police building in Paris on March 28 while being questioned over the murders of eight councillors in a shooting spree the day before.

His death sparked controversy among the survivors and victims' families who asked how he could have been allowed to escape custody.

In a statement on Saturday, the French Justice Ministry said prosecutors expected "no legal action" to be taken against the officers who were questioning Durn.

"The report resulting from the inquiry...finds that there were errors of judgment due to an under-estimation of the risks linked to Richard Durn's personality and the layout of the premises," the statement said.

"But these errors do not justify the launching of disciplinary procedures."

However, on Saturday lawyers representing Durn's mother, Stefania Durn, said they would file a complaint seeking to establish what happened to Durn while he was in custody.

"Madame Durn hopes, for the sake of the victims and those close to them, that the full story behind her son's death comes to light," her lawyers said in a statement.

Durn, 33, went on a shooting rampage, killing the councillors and wounding 19 other people at a routine municipal meeting in the northwestern Paris suburb of Nanterre.

He is said to have spoken of suicidal thoughts and a desire to kill others.

In a confession published earlier this week in Le Parisien newspaper, Durn said he had only intended to kill Nanterre mayor Jacqueline Fraysse.

"I want to have the same stature as bin Laden, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Milosevic...," Durn wrote, according to the paper.

Fraysse survived the attack and has since being a chief critic of the police handling of the case.

She has asked: "How was (Durn) authorised to own weapons?

"How could a man this dangerous, who had clearly stated his intention to commit suicide ... escape surveillance?"

Fraysse and relatives of the victims have pushed for a full inquiry into the circumstances of Durn's death.

The case and the circumstances of Durn's death have put the spotlight on France's relatively strict gun laws.

He used two Glock semiautomatic pistols in the attack and also carried a .357 Magnum, even though his licence had expired.

The local prefecture who granted Durn a licence in 1997 has not explained why it did so despite a history of threatening behaviour.

It is also unclear why it did not require him to return his guns when he failed to renew his licence in 2000.

Victims:

Monique Leroy-Sauter, 43

Louiza Benakli, 40

Michel Raoult, 58

Christian Bouthier, 46

Olivier Mazzotti, 38

Pascal Sternberg, 30

Valérie Méot, 40

Jacotte Duplenne, 48