A hammer-wielding Malian immigrant died yesterday after French police shot him twice with a Taser stun gun during a scuffle, authorities said, reviving controversy over the weapon’s safety.

“From initial reports it seems that, faced with the aggression and violence of this person, police officers were obliged to use an electric charge pistol,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux told reporters.

Earlier, after the incident in the Paris suburb of Colombes, a police spokesman said: “During his arrest, a Taser was used twice. Following the intervention, the person died of a cause that remains to be determined.”

Police use of the Taser to subdue suspects has been controversial in France, with rights groups alleging that it can be deadly if misused while the company that produces the weapon insists it is safe.

Trouble broke out just after midnight on Monday when police were called to an argument between the 38-year-old Malian, who was allegedly staying in France illegally, and a friend who had provided him with a place to stay.

When officers attempted to check his identity papers the man “flipped out” and seized a hammer to beat them back, injuring four of the eight police who pursued him through the apartment block, a police source said.

Police shot the heavily overweight fugitive twice with Tasers, which fire a pair of charged darts into a target to stun him with 50,000 volts, but in this case appear to have had no visible effect, a police source said.

The suspect was also tear-gassed and struck with a baton, the source added.

Officers eventually managed to arrest him and were bringing him out of the building in the block’s elevator when he collapsed. Paramedics were already on the scene to treat injured police but could not revive him.

Following yesterday’s death, left-wing opposition lawmakers demanded a new nationwide inquiry into the use of the Taser.

The director of the Taser’s French subsidiary, Antoine di Zazzo, told AFP: “Only this man’s autopsy will be able to say whether our pistol is responsible for his death. To date, worldwide, a Taser has never killed anyone.”

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