LYON: A gunman on Thursday shot dead a female employee at a government job centre in southeastern France and then killed another woman on the premises of a company in the region, police and prosecutors said.

The man shot the job centre employee after he entered the office in the city of Valence, said a police source, who asked not to be identified by name, confirming a report first published in the Dauphine Libere newspaper.

The assailant then went to the nearby town of Guilherand-Granges where he shot twice a female employee of a refuse collection company.

She later died of her wounds, Valence prosecutor Alex Perrin told AFP.