With emotions running high several hundred people have taken to the streets of Paris claiming poor immigrant housing conditions are at the root of the fire that killed 17 people. As many as 14 of them were children and one a pregnant woman.

All the victims were African immigrants. There is emormous pressure on housing in Paris and thousands of families live in run-down hotels or shabby buildings.The city council says more than a hundred thousand poor families were looking for social housing in the capital last year, but just twelve thousand homes were allocated.

The blaze broke out just after midnight on Friday and took two hours to bring under control. Some 30 adults and a hundred children lived here according to the polcie.

Initial investigations suggest the fire began in a stairwell on the ground floor of this rundown building. Then an open window on the top floor pulled the flames upwards turning the area into a chimney.

In April a blaze at another immigrant hotel in Paris claimed 24 lives, half of them children.

Survivors have been given temporary accommodation - most lost family members, one woman saw four of her six children perish.

PHOTO CAPTION

Alaye Ba, a 46-year-old Senegalese immigrant shows stacks of dried wood in the basement of his building, filled with African families waiting to be placed in public housing, in Paris, Saturday, Aug. 27, 2005. (AP)