Policeman shoots children, colleague, himself

A French gendarme killed two of his children and a superior before shooting himself in military police barracks south of Paris, a source close to the police said yesterday.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie visited the barracks in the town of Malakoff in the wake of the tragedy, which a public prosecutor said appeared to be the result of a long-standing dispute between the two men.

The 43-year-old gendarme, who was under psychological supervision and had had his service weapon withdrawn, shot his superior with his personal weapon. He then killed two of his three children, a boy and a girl aged 11, before turning the weapon on himself.

The shootings yesterday followed another family drama earlier this week in southern France when a 37-year-old man admitted to drowning his three children in a bathtub.