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Another four people were seriously injured in the fire, which
started on the ground floor before spreading up the seven-storey
building, rescue authorities told local media.
The fire, which began around 3 a.m. (0200 GMT), has been
extinguished.
Footage on social media showed a huge, dark cloud billowing
above the building earlier in the day.
"I was woken up by the screams," a neighbour, Mohamed, told Le
Progres de Lyon newspaper. "We wanted to help people but the
smoke was too thick."
Other witnesses, quoted by local media said a woman had thrown
her child into the crowd, which managed to catch him. She then
jumped out of the window to escape the fire and smoke and fell
to her death.
The Lyon prosecutor's office opened an investigation to
determine how the fire broke out, and said it could not rule out
any hypothesis, including that someone started the fire
deliberately.
Darmanin, who is heading to the scene on Friday, said there were
"several scenarios".
Neighbours told media, including Le Progres de Lyon and BFM TV,
that squatters - possibly drug dealers - had lived on the ground
floor of the building, located an underprivileged suburb of Lyon
where many feel abandoned by public authorities.
(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta, Dominique Vidalon and Ingrid
Melander; Editing by Stephen Coates, Mark Potter and Barbara
Lewis)
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