BOBIGNY: One person was killed and six injured overnight in a gritty northern Paris suburb in a shooting likely linked to drug trafficking, prosecutors and the mayor said today.

The attack in a parking lot near a cultural centre at Sevran, which lies between central Paris and the city's main airport Charles de Gaulle, took place around 11.45pm on Friday, prosecutors said.

Upon arriving on the scene, police found four injured people strewn on the ground. One died soon after and the three others were taken to hospitals in a serious condition, a police source said.

Three more people injured by bullets were later taken to hospital, the source said, adding that two men had arrived in the parking lot in a car and one of them got out and opened fire.

The attackers then fled.

Sevran mayor Stephane Blanchet told AFP "it was clearly a settling of scores linked to drug trafficking".

"There is a need to establish order and eradicate trafficking," he said.

"Those idiots fired live bullets and did not heed appeals for calm".

Police have opened an investigation into intentional homicide by an organised gang, they said. No arrests had been made yet.

 - AFP