French tax inspector killed during visit to antique dealer

Police are searching for evidence at the farm owned by the dealer

A French tax inspector has been killed during an audit at the home of a dealer in second-hand goods, police say.

Officers found the victim with multiple stab wounds and his female colleague bound to a chair at the property in the small northern village of Bullecourt.

The dealer's body was found in an outlying building. Officials say he shot himself.

The prosecutor said the murder appeared to have been premeditated, as metal clamps were found on the premises.

The man had no previous convictions but had committed "acts of violence against minors", prosecutor Sylvain Barbier Sainte Marie added.

The 46-year-old businessman collected items from private homes and car-boot sales to resell them at the farm he owned, according to Éric Bianchin, the mayor of Bullecourt, a village of 250 people south-east of Arras.

"I never had any problem with him," the mayor told French media, adding that he had arrived in the village four years before.

However, trouble clearly arose during his discussion with the team from the tax office who had gone to his home on Monday to check his books.

When the alarm was raised "by a witness" early on Monday evening, emergency services arrived at the scene to find the 43-year-old inspector and farm-owner dead.

"The republic is mourning one of its own," Budget Minister Gabriel Attal said after visiting the dead inspector's colleagues on Tuesday.

He said it was "appalling" that a public servant should die "because he did his job".

The surviving colleague of the murder victim is being treated for shock.