French prosecutors have filed preliminary murder and terrorism charges against the brother of a gunman who killed Jewish schoolchildren and paratroopers in attacks that stunned the country.

There is no evidence that gunman Mohamed Merah had links with al Qaida or other terror groups, a French official says.

France’s prime minister has rejected suggestions that anti-terrorism authorities fell down on the job in monitoring a radical Islamist who gunned down seven people in a wave of killings that revolted the country.

Inspired by radical Islam and trained in Afghanistan, the gunman methodically killed French schoolchildren, a rabbi and paratroopers and faced down hundreds of police for 32 hours.

An investigation is under way to see if the radical Islamic gunman suspected of killing seven French people had any accomplices, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said today.

An Islamic extremist who boasted of killing seven people died today after jumping from his window, gun in hand, in a fierce shootout with French police.

The man suspected of carrying out an al-Qaida-linked killing spree, Mohammed Merah, is dead after a 32-hour siege in Toulouse, a police union official says.

French police are inside the apartment where the suspected gunman Mohammed Merah has been holed up, according to sources quoted by AFP news agency.

The chief suspect in an al Qaida-linked killing spree who is holed up in an apartment wants to “die with weapons in his hands”, according to France’s interior minister.

Police raided the French school gunman’s home as he was poised to carry out another series of shootings, a prosecutor said.

French police have said they will storm the flat where the suspected Jewish school massacre gunman is holed up if he does not surrender.

A gunman who killed four people at a Jewish school in southern France may have filmed the attack, the French interior minister said today.

A major manhunt was underway across France today for a suspected racist serial killer.