Paris Fire Raises Housing Issues

A fire that killed 17 people early Friday in a crowded, rundown apartment building housing African immigrants triggered angry calls for decent dwellings for the needy.

It was the second deadly blaze since spring to strike poor immigrants in the French capital. In April, a fire at a budget hotel killed at least 23 people, also mostly from Africa. Most of the victims in both blazes were children.

About 400 people demonstrated Friday night in front of the devastated building on a main boulevard in southeastern Paris’ 13th district, demanding that empty buildings be requisitioned to house those in need.

“More than ever, housing must be a national priority,” Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said. Paris has 110,000 unfilled requests for low-cost housing, according to associations working with the poor.

The fire started about midnight under the ground-floor stairwell of the seven-story building and raged for three hours, prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said.

The cause was not immediately determined and an investigation was underway, the prosecutor told reporters. Investigators quickly dismissed a possible short-circuit as the cause because there were no electrical elements where the blaze started.

Of the 17 killed, 14 were children, he said. The building housed about 30 adults and 100 children. More than 200 firefighters fought the blaze.

Oumar Cisse, who like many of the other residents was from Mali, was awakened by people’s cries and rushed to his second-floor window. People “jumped out the windows,” he said.

Some of the victims were asphyxiated and others were burned.