Motorbike gunman kills four at Jewish school

The attack in Toulouse yesterday by a man who escaped on a moped was the third such deadly shooting in France in little over a week.

Tough security measures were immediately ordered at schools and religious buildings around the country as investigators intensified their hunt for the killer.

French president Nicolas Sarcozy, who halted his election campaigning to fly to Toulouse, said “It’s a day of national tragedy”.

Mr Sarkozy denounced “the savagery” of the attack and vowed to find the killer or killers. “We will find him,” he said.

Panicked children and parents had run for their lives as the man stepped off his motorcycle and began firing the first of 15 rounds at his helpless targets.

The shootings began at around 8am, the start of the day at the Ozar Hatorah school, a junior and high school in a quiet residential district.

Rabbi Jonathan Sandler, 30, and his three-year-old and six-year-old sons were killed with the eight-year-old daughter of the school principal, school officials said.

Rabbi Sandler taught Yiddish at the school and had moved to the city from Jerusalem only last September.

A 17-year-old boy was seriously wounded and was undergoing surgery yesterday.

Concerns emerged about a possible serial killer with racist motives, because of its similarities with two other shootings in the Toulouse region that killed three French paratroopers, who were of North African and French Caribbean origin, and left another seriously injured.

In each of the three attacks, the same large caliber bullet – 11.43 – was used, a police official said.

Toulouse prosecutor Michel Valet said: "He shot at everything he had in front of him, children and adults. The children were chased inside the school."

A man who lives near the school said he spoke with the rabbi just moments before.

"I said "Bonjour" to him like normal," said the 29-year-old, identified only by his first name Baroukh. "Then he went out into the school entrance. I heard the shots and I turned around and saw him on the ground. He looked dead. But I didn't have much time to see who did it because I panicked and started running away."

Interior Ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet said the killer fled on a dark-coloured scooter – just as the assailant or assailants did in the two shootings last week.

On March 10, a gunman on a scooter shot and killed a paratrooper in Toulouse. Last Thursday, a gunman on a scooter opened fire on three uniformed paratroopers at a bank machine in Montauban, about 30 miles from Toulouse, killing two and critically wounding the other.

Investigators are looking at terrorist links. "It is too early to establish a sure link" between Monday's shooting and those of the paratroopers last week, Mr Valet added. "But there are elements that justify asking very serious questions."

Forensic analysis has already showed the same weapon was used in the shootings in Montauban and Toulouse.