This probably won't come as too much as a surprise!

The gunman killed in France was on a US no-fly list and French intelligence had interviewed him as recently as November 2011.

France is facing calls for an inquiry into possible intelligence failures after a series of murders by a gunman in the south of the country.

Mohammed Merah - who claimed to have al-Qaeda training - was killed by a police sniper in Toulouse on Thursday.

It has now emerged that he had been under surveillance for months and had been on the US no-fly list.

Merah, 23, carried out three separate attacks, killing four people at a Jewish school and three soldiers.

He had said he was acting to "avenge Palestinian children" and protest against French military interventions overseas.

On Thursday French officials admitted that Merah had been followed by intelligence agencies for years.

They said that as recently as November 2011 he was questioned by France's DCRI domestic intelligence agency to explain his trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Commentators in France and abroad have criticised the intelligence services for failing to track Merah closely enough.