A man lies on the ground as French police check his identity near the Bataclan concert hall following fatal shootings in Paris, France, yesterday.
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French President Francois Hollande said it was a “act of war” organised by the Islamic State (IS) militant group. “One has the impression that this is not reality, it’s a nightmare”.
“We hid in a cafe, barricaded on the first floor”. They had long shotguns and seemed hysterical, screaming and not really sure what to do.
“When we came out it looked like a slaughterhouse”.
Paul, one of hundreds who had gathered at the hall, told The Local: “We were in the main concert hall and had just finished watching the support band”.
Witness Benoit Tanaka was outside Le Bataclan when he heard a steady stream of shots emanating from the venue.
“People were falling like dominoes”, he told Reuters.
No one was allowed to leave, he said, leading a few people to run onto the field in a panic.
“It was a bloodbath, ” Pearce said in a phone interview with Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie on TODAY Saturday.
‘People yelled, screamed and everybody lying on the floor, and it lasted for 10 minutes, 10 minutes, 10 horrific minutes where everybody was on the floor covering their head(s)’.
“Many of them were covered with blood, people were screaming”, she said. They didn’t shout anything. “I am not sure if they were police or the attackers”.
“The concert stopped and everyone there dropped to the floor but they kept mowing people down, it was hell”, the young man said while trying to rein in his sobs. I mean, it’s not a huge concert room. It’s a small one. There was blood everywhere.
“Some of them were dead”. I don’t remember what I saw, just lots of injured people.
Pierce said he was lucky to be near the front of the stage as the gunmen, wearing black clothes and wielding AK-47s, opened fire.
After going about 200-300 meters, he put the girl in a taxi and told the cabbie to get her to the hospital.
“I clearly heard them say “It’s the fault of Hollande, it’s the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria”.
“They shot right into the crowd, shouting Allah Akbar” (“God is greatest”), a witness reported following the attack on the concert hall. I must have gotten shot at that time, I do not know, [I’m drawing a blank].
“It’s disgusting. There’s a body over there”.
Later in the night police stormed the venue. Four suspected assailants were killed.
“I was in the audience and I heard what sounded like a firecracker”.
Charlotte Brehaut and a friend were dining at a Cambodian restaurant in Paris, she said. The footage appears to show dead bodies.
There were unconfirmed reports of other shootings in Rue de Charonne in the 11th district and at the central Les Halles shopping and cinema complex.
Ben Grant was in a bar with his wife when one of the shootings occurred.
A reporter for the French newspaper Le Monde filmed people fleeing from the Bataclan Concert hall as gunmen attacked it Friday. Scores of police surrounded the building and sirens wailed throughout the neighborhood.
More than 100 music lovers were shot dead in the apparent terror attack.
“We were trapped”, he said.
“I’m supposed to get engaged to her in three weeks”. At first I thought a vehicle ran into the restaurant Le Petit Cambodge, where the window was smashed. I understood that there was something serious …
Speaking with France Inter radio, several witnesses were in tears.
He said he did not hear the man say anything.
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“All we can hear are sirens, we are waiting to be evacuated from the Boulevard du Calvaire cafe”.
