Four dead in birthday party shooting in France

Four people, including the shooter, died late Saturday when a man opened fire on a birthday party in a village in France, authorities said.

The man approached a neighbouring house where a 20-year-old was celebrating his birthday with his family in Espinasse-Vozelle, a central French village of around 1,000 inhabitants about 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Clermont-Ferrand.

He fired shots at the party guests, killing three of them, and then himself, the local prefecture said.

The young man celebrating his birthday and his father were both killed.

Police were still piecing together the "how and the why" of the attack, authorities said. The man appears to have shot at passing motorists before the deadly assault.

Jerome Piques, a local prosecutor, told the media that the man, who was not among the party guests, approached the neighbouring house via a path linking both properties at around 9:30pm (1930 GMT) before firing his gun loaded with lead bullets.

Four people were in hospital after being wounded in the shooting, but their injuries were not life-threatening, he said.

Fifteen others, who witnessed the shooting, were under observation by psychologists.

"It's a shock," Michel Marien, the mayor of Espinasse-Vozelle, told the media. "We don't know what triggered this, how a person loses control and does something like this."

Police said the shooter, in his early 50s, appeared to have no prior convictions. The only trace of any irregularity were documents relating to unpaid family support payments, a source close to the case said.

"The exact sequence of events still needs to be checked," the source said.

A large number of police and emergency services were on site Sunday.

Participants at the village's Bastille Day celebration that were going on nearby were not harmed as police cordoned off the area.

Agence France-Presse