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(File image) Police in France have launched a homicide investigation. Alamy Stock Photo
Meaux

Police in France arrest man suspected of murdering woman and four children on Christmas Day

Police in France are looking for a 33-year-old father who is “on the run”.

LAST UPDATE | 26 Dec 2023

POLICE HAVE ARRESTED a man suspected of murdering a mother and her four children found dead at home on Christmas Day, a law enforcement source said.

The bodies of five people were found yesterday in an apartment in the town of Meaux to the east of Paris.

The police source said the main suspect had been detained in the nearby town of Sevran.

“The flat showed no sign of breaking and entering, and the father was absent,” he said earlier.

A source close to the case said the 35-year-old mother and her children were killed with “a cold weapon”, a term usually used to refer to a knife. The source said police had been looking for a 33-year-old man.

The Versailles judicial police service opened an inquiry into “premeditated murder”.

According to news website Actu17, which first reported the discovery, the victims were a woman and her four young children.

The Paris region has recently seen a series of infanticides – one in November and another in October – where fathers were found to have killed their children.

In both incidents, three young girls were murdered. One father handed himself into police and the other killed himself with his children.

© AFP 2023