5 die in arson attack on hotel

(First Edition)

PARIS (AFP) - Five people were killed and 15 injured yesterday when a drunken resident threatened with expulsion set fire to a hotel in a working-class Paris district, police said. It took 120 firefighters about two hours to control the pre-dawn blaze.

Police arrested the alleged arsonist, but identified him only as 'a man in his 60s who was drunk', adding that he was nearly lynched by survivors of the fire at the residential hotel. A hotel employee said the owner had threatened on Thursday night to evict the man because he was 'too dirty'. The man then threatened to 'burn the hotel down', the employee said.