The French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, has announced an investigation of housing conditions for immigrants living in Paris after last night's fire at an apartment block in the city in which 17 people died.
Mr Sarkozy was speaking after visiting the scene of the fire.
All 17 victims are believed to have been West African immigrants who were being temporarily housed in the building.
14 of them are now known to have been children. Police say one woman lost four of her six children in the fire.
Another 30 people were injured. Two of them are in a serious condition in hospital.
The alarm was raised at 11.17pm Irish time last night after the fire broke out in a wooden stairwell in the seven-storey building, which has been described as dilapidated.
More than 200 firefighters were involved in bringing the fire under control.
The cause of the blaze has not been established.
The French President, Jacques Chirac, said that the fire, which he called a 'dreadful disaster', put the whole country in mourning.
It happened four months after 22 people died in a fire at a hotel in the capital that was also used to house immigrants.
