1450 GMT: This live report on the tragic shooting of a family near a tourist site in the French Alps is now closing. AFP will give full coverage of further developments on its main news services.
1445 GMT: A summary of the latest situation: French police have assigned 60 officers to investigate yesterday's shooting near Lake Annecy, which claimed the lives of four people -- a father, mother and grandmother in a British-registered BMW estate and a passing cyclist.
Three of the four people were shot in the head in what the prosecutor in charge of the case called an act of "extreme savagery." No weapon has been found.
A four-year-old girl who was found eight hours later crouching beneath her mother's corpse has been talking to psychologists about her trauma.
A seven-year-old girl found by the side of the car is "slowly improving" in hospital after being shot in the shoulder and suffering multiple and "extremely violent" blows to the head.
The people in the car are thought to have been the family of Baghdad-born Saad al-Hilli, who has a home at Claygate, near Esher in southern England.
Prosecutor Eric Maillaud says investigators are not ruling out any possibility, including that all four people who died were collateral victims of an unidentified crime.
1428 GMT: The Swedish foreign ministry says the elder woman killed in the shooting was a Swedish national, confirmation information initially released by the French authorities.
"The information provided in France is correct. She is Swedish. We are waiting for the end of the identification process to issue an official confirmation," foreign ministry spokeswoman Linn Duvhammar said.
She refused to disclose the woman's identity, pending the official confirmation which she said could be announced later today.
The woman's family in Sweden was to be informed by police today, she said.
1413 GMT: Nick Morrison, down in Claygate, spoke to a male friend of the Hilli family who had known them since 2004. He did not want to be named.
"He (Saad al-Hilli) went to school in Pimlico. He was British-educated and British-trained. They came to Claygate in 1984. He was a good friend, a close friend. Saad was the perfect father and a wonderful engineer. He was a keen cyclist," the man told Nick.
The friend said Hilli had been brought up in London after his parents got out of Iraq in the 1970s. Hilli's father's business in Iraq was sequestered by the Ba'ath party.
He spoke to Hilli on August 24. Hilli told him he was taking two weeks off. The friend added that the family had a property in France.
1405 GMT: Saad al-Hilli's accountant Julian Stedman says Hilli was a computer design specialist.
"He would be working for several months for one company and then possibly move on when the work dried up," Stedman said
"He tended to work mainly for one company at a time. He worked very hard," he said, but added that Hilli was a "very jovial" person.
The accountant said he had seen Hilli shortly before the family left for France on August 29.
1357 GMT: In Claygate, a family friend has delivered white flowers to the house, and handed them to a policeman in uniform outside the house, Nick Morrison reports.
He said Hilli was a "nice guy".
A woman who lives in a house near the al-Hilli family, who was clearly upset, said she used to take the daughters to school sometimes.
"We used to see the couple on the school run. They were lovely, they were very friendly people with really sweet little girls," said the woman, who did not want to be identified.
1351 GMT: Several witnesses have reported seeing a car speeding away from the scene of the killings around the time the attack took place.
The victims were discovered at around 3:50 pm yesterday by the ex-RAF British cyclist. The local cyclist who was killed had overtaken him minutes earlier.
Experts from the national gendarmerie's IRCGN unit have collected DNA evidence from the scene and are checking spent bullet cartridges in an attempt to identify the weapons used.
1342 GMT: Neighbours in Claygate told the Evening Standard that Hilli's wife Ikbal had recently trained as a dentist in Baghdad.
1341 GMT: Vinnemann said gendarmes were unable to open the doors of the family's BMW for fear that bullet-pierced windows would shatter, potentially compromising the work of the IRCGN forensic team.
"Firemen, technicians and doctors all looked into the car through the holes in the windows but none of them saw the girl," the officer added.
A helicopter equipped with a thermal camera took images of the car to check if there were any other bodies inside but also failed to identify the girl. "She was so close to her mother they appeared as one mass," said Vinnemann.
1339 GMT: Local police have defended the decisions that led to the four-year-old being left in the car for eight hours.
"We had instructions not to enter the car and not to move the bodies," Lieutenant-Colonel Benoit Vinnemann of the local gendarmerie told AFP.
1337 GMT: A profile on the LinkedIn business networking website describes Saad al-Hilli as a consultant in the aviation and aerospace industry.
Stedman said Hilli was a director of aerospace firm Sctech Limited.
1333 GMT: In Claygate, local postman Gary Standford said Hilli had "seemed a pleasant man".
"He'd been living here for about three years," Standford said.
1324 GMT: AFP's Nick Morrison says there are now 14 uniformed police officers at the Hilli family's home in Claygate. Four of the police are on the property, the rest are on the street.
A florist's van turned up and delivered a large gift bag full of white roses. The property is well-kept, behind large hedges, he says.
Around 40 journalists on the scene including two TV trucks.
1315 GMT: The latest situation: French police have assigned 60 officers to investigate yesterday's shooting near Lake Annecy, which claimed the lives of four people -- a father, mother and grandmother in a British-registered BMW estate and a passing cyclist.
A four-year-old girl who was found eight hours later hidden in the bottom of the car has been talking to psychologists about her trauma.
A seven-year-old girl found by the side of the car is seriously wounded and needs surgery but is slowly improving.
The people in the car are thought to be the family of Baghdad-born Saad al-Hilli, who has a home at Claygate, near Esher in southern England.
Prosecutor Eric Maillaud says investigators are not ruling out any possibility, including that all four people who died were collateral victims of an unidentified crime.
1312 GMT: Stedman has confirmed that Hilli and his family left for a holiday in a marron BMW five series car.
1311 GMT: British Foreign Secretary William Hague says via Twitter: "Terrible, tragic shooting in France. British Embassy team on the scene. Our thoughts are with the young girls who survived and the family.
1306 GMT: Julian Stedman, Hilli's accountant, told Nick Morrison: "I never dreamt it would be him. It's a total and utter shock to me"
Does Hilli have any enemies? "None that I know of."
1305 GMT: AFP’s Nick Morrison is at what is believed to be the family home of those shot dead near Annecy. The house is in Claygate near Esher, a leafy residential district of Surrey, southwest of London.
Nick says four police officers have just walked through the front gate. There is a plainclothes policewoman at posted outside the spacious detached house.
1303 GMT: The car was parked near the start of walking routes but it is not known if they planned a walk, Maillaud says. They had no special walking gear.
1301 GMT: Comparing the photo on the Swedish passport to the photos of the older woman victim suggest it is "likely" to be her passport, he said.
1256 GMT: Ballistics and forensic investigations are "far from finished". An official legal investigation will be opened, led by two judges, he said.
Nothing has been decided on the timetable, the prosectur said, though he hopes it will be quick.
1254 GMT: The location of the killings is not known as one used for drugs trafficking. The search for weapons is carrying on, Maillaud says.
1253 GMT: The cyclist who died had told his wife he was going out cycling and planned to take a new route, he says. "He perhaps wanted to visit caves. I don't know any more that that."
1252 GMT: The family arrived at the campsite on Monday and were due to leave at the end of the week, the prosecutor says.
1251 GMT: Asked if the killings of the cyclist and the three in the car were collateral to something else, he says it is possible.
1249 GMT: Asked if any other vehicles were involved he said there were tyre marks but it is not yet known if they are connected. "No assumption can be ruled out," he said.
1246 GMT: The act was one of "extreme savagery", prosecutor Maillaud says, adding that the scene was "worse than television fiction".
"It was obvious that whoever did this wanted to kill."
1238 GMT: Another camper, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two girls had dark hair and the grandmother wore a full-length black dress.
1237 GMT: The family were described by fellow campers at the Saint Jorioz site on the shore of Lake Annecy as being dark-haired with olive skin.
Dutch camper Petra Kroon told AFP: "The mother had light brown skin and long black hair. I thought they were gypsies."
1234 GMT: The man found dead in the driver's seat has been identified by a police source as Saad al-Hilli, a 50-year-old born in Baghdad but resident in Claygate, Surrey in the southeast of England.
1232 GMT: Only the windows of the car and people were hit by bullets, he said, saying that the car was not sprayed with bullets.
1230 GMT: The cyclist who died was Sylvain Mollier, born in 1967, who was identified by the local mayor, the prosecutor says.
1228 GMT: The younger girl is talking about the killings to the people who are looking after her, Maillaud says.
"The little girl spoke English. She heard noises, shouts but she can't tell us any more than that. She is only four years old."
1225 GMT: The eldest woman had a Swedish passport and also an Iraqi passport, he says.
1224 GMT: The family gave the campsite a passport of a man born in Iraq, who was also the owner of the car but that does not prove who the victims are, Maillaud says. "I cannot say it was him." No ID has been found for the younger woman or the girl, the prosecutor says.
1223 GMT: There were a lot of bags at the caravan, just like any family on holiday. It is impossible to say if they were getting ready to leave, he says.
1222 GMT: He welcomed the actions taken by a British cyclist who discovered the bodies, saying he was a Royal Air Force veteran and must be congratulated for his bravery.
1220 GMT: It's impossible to say who was killed first and we may never know, he says.
1219 GMT: The assumption is that an automatic weapon was used but it is too early to say if only one weapon was used, Maillaud says, adding that the autopsies will provide further information.
1218 GMT: Three out of the four victims were shot in the head, he says and at least 15 shots were fired.
1216 GMT: About 60 officers are investigating the killings, Maillaud says.
1214 GMT: The elder girl is in a artificial coma, the prosecutor says.
1212 GMT: Maillaud, explaining why it took eight hours to find the four-year old younger girl inside the car, said was because of the thorough investigations. Her body was not visible and there was no indications of her presence, he says.
1210 GMT: The elder girl found by the side of the car was struck severely but is slowly improving in hospital after an operation, says public prosecutor Eric Maillaud.
1208 GMT: A press conference hears of the discovery of four bodies by a passing cyclist.
1207 GMT: Wednesday's shooting near Lake Annecy claimed the lives of four people -- a father, mother and grandmother in a British-registered BMW estate and a passing cyclist.
Welcome to AFP's Live Report on the tragic shooting of a family near a tourist site in the French Alps.
A four-year-old girl miraculously survived the shooting that left four people dead by curling up under the bullet-riddled corpses of her mother and grandmother, officials said this morning.
The little girl spent eight hours concealed on the back seat of her family's car following a mysterious and brutal gun attack which also left her elder sister seriously injured and killed a passer-by.
