LYON (AFP) - A man in eastern France jumped out of the window of his ninth-floor flat with his three-year-old son after torching the child's mother, police said on Saturday.

The tragedy occurred on Friday in Chenove near the Burgundy city of Dijon.

The 25-year-old father was killed on the spot, the toddler died of his wounds soon after and the mother was fighting for her life in hospital with severe burns, local prosecutor Marie-Christine Tarrare told AFP.

Investigators and relatives said the man doused his former partner with a flammable liquid and set her alight after a row erupted over the child's custody.