Jacques Chirac demanded immediate action on fire safety

President Jacques Chirac ordered immediate action on fire safety in France Tuesday after a second fatal blaze in less than a week killed seven immigrants.

As Pravda.ru reported earlier, three adults and four children living in the squat became the latest victims of a series of fires in Parisian blocks of flats used by African migrants.

The deaths in the capital's Marais district led to renewed calls for an overhaul of the city's policy on housing the poor from overseas.

Stories of the squalid living conditions endured by those in the squat, close to some of the city's most fashionable addresses, only heightened the national sense of shame.

A boy aged six died from his injuries after his mother threw him from a fourth-floor window to escape the flames.

Six other bodies were found in the charred remains of the building, which was occupied by 12 families from Ivory Coast.

It followed a similar fire in another block of flats run by a charity for homeless immigrants last Friday in which 17 people, including 14 children, died.

In April, another blaze in a Paris hotel being used as a temporary home for immigrants killed 24.

"I want to stress how much the situation is unworthy of the natural requirements that we owe to people here in France, whatever their origin or nationality," Mr Chirac was qгщеув as saying by Telegraph.

The president demanded that unspecified "measures" be taken to "avoid dramas such as this". But his response was soon trumped by that of his former protege and rival, Nicolas Sarkozy.