Massacre in France Stokes Debate

France reacted with horror Wednesday to a massacre in a suburban city hall in which police say a man killed eight city council members and seriously wounded 14 other people--stoking a debate about violent crime, which was already the top issue in the presidential campaign.

Police arrested Richard Durn, a volunteer member of a human rights group who often attended council sessions. Police say Durn rose from the public gallery and opened fire with two semiautomatic pistols after a meeting ended at 1:11 a.m. Wednesday in Nanterre, a suburb of 87,000 people west of Paris.

During a struggle with officials, who threw a chair at him and tried to grab his guns, the assailant kept firing with his free hand, witnesses said. They said that when he was subdued, the gunman shouted: “Kill me! Kill me!”

Durn, 33, had no criminal record and had a license for the guns, according to police. He was unemployed, lived with his mother and was taking medication for an undisclosed psychiatric condition, police said.

His mother told journalists that her son had been undergoing psychiatric treatment since 1990 and talked repeatedly about an urge to kill.

Otherwise, there was no clear motive for the rampage, which claimed victims from across the political spectrum.

Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and conservative President Jacques Chirac, rivals in next month’s election, both rushed to the bloodstained council chambers in the pyramid-shaped city hall. The city is governed, as are many working-class suburbs here, by an alliance of leftist parties.

“These acts cannot be described as human . . . and everything must be done to repress and prevent them,” Chirac said.

Another presidential candidate, Alain Madelin, said the killing spree exemplified French society’s dangerous drift toward “American-style violence.”

Although France has far less violent crime than the United States, it is the top concern of French voters, according to a recent survey by the polling company Ipsos.

Beyond a steady statistical increase in crime, the French have been shocked by acts of unprecedented viciousness. Headlines speak of brazen cop-killers, gang rapists prowling housing projects, and schoolyard extortionists.

The Nanterre rampage was the third and most terrifying such mass shooting in eight months.

Jospin said the government has worked to restrict access to guns “by violent and fragile souls or criminals.” However, the prime minister cautioned against using the case as a political weapon, warning: “It is always extremely difficult to prevent an act of madness. Another problem altogether are the guns obtained by gangs.”

Nonetheless, the tragedy intensified debate about violence in this prosperous society, which prides itself on generous public benefits intended to prevent U.S.-style inequality and social tension.

Police in recent months have held demonstrations to protest legal reforms, which officers say encourage assaults on police, firefighters and other symbols of authority.

Accounts on Wednesday suggested that Durn was a tormented loner looking for a political cause.

He had applied for a job at city hall, according to municipal officials. He was volunteer treasurer of the Nanterre chapter of the League for the Rights of Man, according to the president of that human rights organization.

Although authorities said Durn had no record, they also reported that he had been involved in an incident four years ago in which he threatened the staff of a medical office at gunpoint.

Before the shooting, Durn sat by himself through a sparsely attended, six-hour budget session, witnesses said. The tall, brown-haired man apparently was calm and talked to a few people, Interior Minister Daniel Vaillant said.

When the meeting ended, Durn advanced in silence down the aisle toward the seats of the council members as he unleashed a 50-shot barrage, according to Ghislaine Quilin, a mayoral aide who dived for cover.

“He was shooting in every direction,” Quilin told reporters. “Several of us were hit, and then he started to come forward and systematically kill every official who was in his path. I was lucky because I was on the left of the chamber and he started from the right.”

The dead, four men and four women, ranged in age from 30 to 58. The victims were four members of the French Communist Party, three members of a center-right party and a representative of the Greens.

Police said that in his statements after his arrest and in a letter found at his home, Durn expressed disgust with his life and his hometown.

Reactions Wednesday indicated that the crime issue will now play an even bigger role in the close race leading up to the first round of the presidential election April 21.

In comments on national television, Toulouse Mayor Philippe Douste-Blazy declared that the time had come for politicians to do more than talk.

Douste-Blazy, a center-right Chirac supporter, spoke from personal experience: While culture minister in 1997, he survived a stabbing attack by a deranged assailant who had stalked him for five years.

“It’s time to stop the hypocrisy,” Douste-Blazy said. “That’s enough: The left, the center, the right. . . . There’s been an explosion of violence. It’s horrible.”