Man arrested over murder of woman, 4 kids in France on Christmas Day

French police on Tuesday arrested a man suspected of murdering a mother and her four children, who were found dead at home on Christmas Day, a law enforcement source said.

Authorities discovered the bodies of the woman and her children — aged nine months, four, seven and 10 — in their flat in the town of Meaux east of Paris on Monday evening after worried relatives sounded the alarm, local prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier said.

The police source said the main suspect had been detained in the nearby town of Sevran.

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"The flat showed no sign of breaking and entering, and the father was absent," he said earlier.

A source close to the case said the 35-year-old mother and her children were killed with "a cold weapon", a term usually used to refer to a knife. The source said police had been looking for a 33-year-old man.

The Versailles judicial police service opened an enquiry into "premeditated murder".

The Paris region has recently seen a series of infanticides.

In late November, a 41-year-old man confessed to killing his three daughters, aged four to 11, and turned himself in.

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