The shootings in the eastern Belgian city of Liege and Florence, Italy, on Tuesday have several precedents over the past 10 years in Europe:

- September 27, 2001 - SWITZERLAND

A man bursts into the local assembly in the central Swiss town of Zug and opens fire, killing 14 members of parliament and local government then turning the gun on himself.

- March 27, 2002 - FRANCE

Eight local councillors are killed and 19 injured when a man opens fire on members of the municipal council of Nanterre, outside Paris. He kills himself the next day while in police custody.

- April 26, 2002 - GERMANY

Sixteen people, including 12 teachers and two students, are gunned down at a school in Erfurt in eastern Germany by a 19-year-old former student, apparently in revenge for having been expelled, who then killed himself.

- November 7, 2007 - FINLAND

An 18-year-old goes on a shooting rampage in a school in the southern Finnish town of Tuusula, killing eight people before shooting himself.

- September 23, 2008 - FINLAND

Eleven people, including the 22-year-old gunman, die in a massacre at a training school at Kauhajoki, Finland.

- March 11, 2009 - GERMANY

Nine pupils, three teachers and three passers-by are killed in a school shooting at Winnenden in southern Germany by a former pupil who then kills himself.

- June 2, 2010 - ENGLAND

Twelve people are killed when a 52-year-old taxi driver goes on a shooting spree in the English region of Cumbria, before killing himself.

- April 9, 2011 - THE NETHERLANDS

A gunman opens fire in a packed mall in the Netherlands, killing six people before shooting himself dead.

- July 22, 2011- NORWAY

A bomb attack on government buildings in Oslo that kills eight is followed by a shooting which kills 69 at a summer holiday camp organised by the ruling Labour party on the island of Utoeya, near to the capital. A right-wing extremist is arrested for carrying out both attacks.

- December 13, 2011 - BELGIUM

Three people, plus the gunman, are killed when a man, armed with grenades, opens fire on a square packed with children and Christmas shoppers in the eastern Belgian city of Liege.

In ITALY a far-right militant kills two Senegalese street vendors and wounds three people in a shooting spree in Florence after which he apparently kills himself.