Frenchman who beheaded employer kills himself in prison

A Frenchman who killed his manager and pinned his severed head to a fence at a gas factory has committed suicide in his jail cell, French prison authorities have said.

Yassin Salhi, 35, was found dead on Tuesday night, according to authorities at Fleury-Merogis prison, in the southern suburbs of Paris. He is reported to have hanged himself.

Salhi killed Herve Cornara in Isere, southeastern France in June, and displayed his victim's head surrounded by Islamic flags outside the factory. 

He tried to blow up the factory before being arrested.

Salhi had been placed in solitary confinement but was not considered a suicide risk. 

The married father of three children was born in the eastern French town of Pontarlier, near the border with Switzerland, to a father of Algerian origin and a mother with a Moroccan background.

Salhi caught the attention of intelligence authorities in 2005 and 2006 because he was socialising with a group of people associated with radical Islam, a source close to the case told AFP in June.

France's spy services investigated him for a few years thereafter, but did not renew their inquiry in 2008. He became of interest again in 2013 for associating with people suspected radicals. 

He had always disavowed any religious motive for his crime, but prosecutors were pressing charges of Islamic-related terrorism.