AFP - Fears grew Friday that a serial killer was stalking housing estates in the suburbs of Paris, where the same weapon has been used to murder four apparently innocent citizens since November.

The latest killing on Thursday of a 47-year-old mother, shot dead near her home in the Essonne suburb, prompted Interior Minister Claude Gueant to vow every effort was being made to find the killer.

All the victims were shot with the same small-calibre 7.65 mm weapon by a gunman who fled on a motorbike, recalling the methods of an Islamist extremist killed by police in southern France in March after murdering seven people.