A parcel bomb killed a secretary and seriously injured a lawyer yesterday when it exploded at a Paris office building which also houses a law firm part-owned by President Sarkozy.

Mr Sarkozy's firm was not the target of the parcel, which was addressed to Olivier Brane, 58, the lawyer who was wounded, prosecutors said. His secretary was killed when two explosive devices detonated as she opened the package, which had been delivered by courier along with another apparently booby-trapped parcel.

Mr Brane was in hospital but his life was not in danger, colleagues said. Four others in the firm were lightly injured or suffering from shock.

“Someone came to the office and left a package. The secretary that opened it in fact opened a parcel bomb. The parcel bomb killed her,” said Christian Charriere-Bournazel, a senior Paris lawyer.

Damien Laude, a construction worker at work across the street from the elegant building said he heard a muffled blast and shortly after saw a blonde woman being carried out of the building. "She was completely covered with blood, she was unconscious," he said.

Police and emergency workers raced to the scene of the blast, the fourth floor of an office building on the Boulevard de Malesherbes, an elegant district in the capital’s eighth arrondissement - home to the Champs Elysees. Traffic was disrupted as the serious crime squad and anti-terrorist police sealed off the Malesherbes area and prepared to defuse the second package.

Michele Alliot Marie, the Interior Minister, broke off a meeting in Brussels to visit the scene. She condemned "this cowardly and odious act with the utmost firmness."

Investigators were immediately at a loss as to who might have targeted the firm. “The motives of the attack are completely unknown for the time being,” the Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said.

The law firm which was targeted, headed by Catherine Gouet-Jenselme, 60, said they had no idea why they had been attacked. "The firm doesn't deal with sensitive areas, mainly insurance, matrimonial and property cases," said one of its staff.

Mr Sarkozy still retains one-third ownership of his firm, which specialises in business law, though he ceased to be an active member when he ran for the presidency last spring. The Sarkozy firm is on the first floor while the targeted lawyer works on the fourth, where the bomb exploded.

The building also houses a foundation that carries out research on the Nazi Holocaust.

(Published by Times Online, December 07, 2007)

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