French police seek to intimidate gunman with blasts An undated and non-datelined video frame grab broadcast March 21, 2012 by French natio...

French police seek to intimidate gunman with blasts

An undated and non-datelined video frame grab broadcast March 21, 2012 by French national television station France 2 who they claim to show Mohamed Merah. [Photo/Agencies]

French CRS police block a street during a raid on a five-storey building to arrest a suspect in the killings of three children and a rabbi on Monday at a Jewish school, in Toulouse March 21, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

French CRS police wear helmets and body armour during a raid on a five-storey building to arrest a suspect in the killings of three children and a rabbi on Monday at a Jewish school, in Toulouse March 21, 2012. [Photo/Agencies]

Members of the bomb squad walk near the scene during a raid on a house to arrest the suspect in the killings of three children and a rabbi on Monday at a Jewish school, in Toulouse March 21, 2012.[Photo/Agencies]

 Three blasts at the building where the suspect in seven shootings in southwest France is holed up were intended to intimidate him and there has not been an assault to get him out of his apartment, the interior ministry said on Thursday.

"They were moves to intimidate the gunman who seems to have changed his mind and does not want to surrender," ministry spokesman Pierre-Henry Brandet told Reuters. "There is no assault."

A police source and a deputy Toulouse mayor had said earlier that an assault had started after three loud blasts had been heard at the building following a more than 20-hour standoff.

Police have been trying to get 24-year-old Mohamed Merah to turn himself over after he fired through the door at them while they tried to storm his apartment in the suburbs of Toulouse in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

(Agencies)