Nanterre massacre

Gunman Richard Durn opened fire at the end of a town council meeting, resulting in the deaths of eight councillors and the injury of nineteen others.

At approximately 1:11 a.m. (CEST),[1] at the Hôtel de Ville (town hall), following a meeting of the municipal council chaired by Mayor Jacqueline Fraysse, Richard Durn rose from his seat, removed firearms previously hidden under his jacket, and opened fire.

Durn was an unintended pregnancy, born out of wedlock to an unknown father, and shortly after his birth his mother divorced her husband.

Durn never knew his father, instead creating a fantasy where he was born to an executed Slovenian political dissident.

He became depressed as a teenager, skipping classes and refusing to speak, but managed to get his Diplôme national de licence.

On 10 July 1998, he was received by a psychiatrist at the university psychological support office, who Durn proceeded to threaten with a gun.

"[1] In the letters he stated he wished to kill people and himself to "give himself the illusion of having been important"; he did not mention elected officials or any of the victims.

[5] He said that he had fired without targeting person or political party, except for the mayor Jacqueline Fraysse, who he had targeted on purpose, "for her quality as mayor and as the embodiment of an irremovable apparatchik, creating a system of clientelism and typical representative of the hypocritical red bourgeoisie."

[6][7] Also, many right-wing polemical voices rose to demand the dissolution of the political party to which Richard Durn belonged, which will have no effect.

Three days before the first round of the presidential election, Prime Minister Lionel Jospin proposed 9 measures to tighten up the arms legislation.

Following the example of Tony Blair in 1998, one of the measures planned was to confiscate without compensation all handguns with central percussion legally held by sport shooters.

The sports shooters noted the State's shortcomings and its inability to operate its administrative monitoring system for weapons subject to authorization or declaration.

With also the attempted attack by Maxime Brunerie against President Jacques Chirac on 14 July 2002, the State nevertheless tightened its legislation on the practice of sport shooting with the law for internal security (LSI) of 18 March 2003.

The psychiatric history is checked with the Departmental Directorate of Health and Social Affairs (DDASS).