At least one person was killed and five others were injured in a parcel bomb explosion in a central Paris building Thursday, the Interior Ministry said.

 

French police close off a road near the site of a parcel bomb in Paris, Dec. 6, 2007. 

 

The explosion took place at a lawyer's office in a building on Boulevard des Malesherbes in the west of the capital Paris, said a ministry statement.

 

The parcel bomb was mailed to a law firm run by the 60-year-oldattorney Catherine Gouet-Jenselme, police said, adding that a legal secretary was killed immediately after opening the parcel. Five others were injured, including one seriously.

 

Several other people were suffering from shock, the ministry said.

 

President Nicolas Sarkozy once practiced as a lawyer on the first floor of the building, but the parcel exploded on the fourth floor, the public prosecutor's office said.

 

The building also houses a foundation that does research on the Holocaust.

 

A second suspected package was being defused in the same building, officials said.

 

French military secure the street near the building where one person was killed and another seriously injured after a parcel bomb exploded in Paris, Dec. 6, 2007.

 

Police vans and several fire trucks lined the streets near the building and a large area around the lawyers' offices was cordoned off.

 

Interior Minister Michele Alliot-Marie condemned the explosion as a "cowardly and hateful act." Alliot-Marie was rushing back to Paris from Brussels, where she was to have taken part in a European Union meeting.

 

French police have launched investigations. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the explosion so far, according to local reports.

 

French police close off a road near the site of a parcel bomb in Paris, Dec. 6, 2007.

 

(Xinhua News Agency December 7, 2007)