"I heard children cry, families scream," Oumar Cisse told journalists after he was evacuated from the building. "Some children were yelling for their mothers and fathers. "People jumped out of the windows, they didn't care about dying" to escape the flames.
Mr. Cisse, a 71-year-old from Mali, said the building was infested by rats and mice and that there were cracks in the walls and lead in the paint. "We were very badly housed, we had been waiting for new homes since 1991," he said.
"This dreadful disaster plunges all France into mourning," President Jacques Chirac said in a statement.
Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said: "It's an extremely heavy toll. "We've just seen the bodies of seven children who were asphyxiated. It's an abominable spectacle."
Police said that a girlfriend of a night watchman admitted she may have started that blaze by accident after throwing a pile of clothes on top of candles.
