At least three people have been killed in a shooting outside a Jewish school in the southwest French city of Toulouse, reports say.

The AFP news agency quoted witnesses as saying that the dead included two children.

Al Jazeera’s Jacky Rowland, reporting from Paris, said that one rabbi was also killed in Monday’s attack.

Witnesses said the attacker was on motorcycle and escaped after opening fire.

The names of the victims were not yet released but French police was quoted as saying that they were a university professor and his two children.

The Aljazeera correspondent said that people were particularly concerned because a recent incident pointed towards a possible pattern emerging.

“Towards the end of last week there was a shooting in which three [paratroopers] were shot dead… Again the attacker was on a scooter,” Rowland said.

Claude Gueant, the French interior minister, has ordered security to be tightened around all French Jewish schools.

Gueant was due to arrive in the southwestern city later in the morning, officials said.

France has Europe’s largest Jewish community, estimated at up to 700,000 people.

Aljazeera/Agencies