France, mother and 4 children found dead in house near Paris: father arrested

“The alleged perpetrator” of a femicide and multiple infanticide in Meaux, in the French region of Seine-et-Marne, east of Paris, was arrested this morning in Sevran, as announced by the police. The man had been actively wanted since last night. He is accused of killing his 4 children, aged between 9 months and 10 years, and their mother, his partner, in their apartment in Meaux. The children and the woman were killed in the family home in Meaux, in the Seine-et-Marne, east of the Paris region, while the man was arrested in Sevran, in the capital’s suburbs. The murderer was already known to the police for family violence and serious psychiatric disorders, investigation sources said. The bodies were discovered yesterday evening, Christmas Day, around 9pm, after the alarm was raised by some neighbors who had not received a response after knocking on the door of the woman who lived with her children, according to what was reported by the Public Prosecutor of Meaux, Jean-Baptiste Bladier. “The apartment – added the prosecutor – showed no signs of forced entry but the children’s father was absent.” The 35-year-old woman and her children were killed with a knife. The murderer is 33 years old. In France there have recently been real family massacres, in particular 2 triple infanticides committed by fathers in the Paris region. At the end of November, a 41-year-old man, also a repeat offender of family violence, confessed to the killing of his three daughters between the ages of 4 and 11 in Alfortville, also east of Paris. He had spoken of constant arguments with his ex-partner over the issue of child custody. In October, a gendarme killed his three children and then committed suicide in his home in Vémars, in the Val d’Oise, north of Paris. Even in that case, “a difficult family context” had emerged. In France, there is a femicide every 3 days, with 118 women killed last year by their partner or ex-partner.