PARIS — Prosecutors in France have launched a homicide investigation after five bodies were found in a town north-east of Paris.

According to local media reports, the victims are a woman and her four young children.

Their bodies were found in the town of Meaux which is just over 41km (25 miles) from the French capital.

They were discovered in an apartment, the local prosecutor told France's AFP news agency.

According to news website Actu17, which first reported the case, police are looking for the 33-year-old father, who is "on the run".

Prosecutor Jean-Baptiste Bladier confirmed to French media the Versailles judicial police service was investigating.

The Paris region has recently seen a series of infanticides:

In late November, a 41-year-old man confessed to killing his three daughters, aged four to 11, and turned himself in. Police found them dead in his home in the town of Alfortville, in the south-eastern suburbs of the capital

In October, a policeman killed his three daughters before killing himself at his home in Vemars in Val-d'Oise. — BBC