At least two explosions have been heard near the Stade de France stadium, and French media is reporting of a hostage-taking in the capital.
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After the attacks, Gore said the event would cease broadcasting out of solidarity with the French people. Molins says at least five attackers in total have been killed. Around 1,500 troops were deployed.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said they were “deeply shocked” by the attacks. “Many people were crying and the news channels had to cut them off because they couldn’t have that kind of thing on the air to panic people because nobody really knows what’s going on”.
“It’s a horror”, he said.
France has been on edge since January, when Islamic extremists attacked the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which had run cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, and a kosher grocery.
The rock band Eagles of Death Metal were performing a sold-out concert at the theatre.
Scores of people are reported dead after what are being called terror attacks across Paris. Police who stormed the building, killing two attackers, encountered a bloody scene of horror inside.
Police also said that hostages were taken and being held at the Bataclan concert hall, according to multiple reports.
A police official confirmed one explosion in a bar near the stadium. “I could have met him before and never thought he was a terrorist”, the witness said of one of the gunmen.
In an eyewitness report posted on Europe1 website, Julien Pierce, a journalist from the broadcaster said “two or three individuals, who are not wearing masks and armed with kalachnikov entered the hall while the concert was underway and started blindly shooting at the crowd”. It was very violent.
This time, they targeted young people enjoying a rock concert and ordinary city residents enjoying a Friday night out.
French President Francois Hollande said the gunmen who had stormed the Paris concert hall had been killed.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the Paris attacks, which came within days of attacks claimed by Islamic State militants on a Shi’ite Muslim district of southern Beirut in Lebanon, and a Russian tourist aircraft which crashed in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Jihadists on Twitter immediately praised the attack and criticised France’s military operations against Islamic State extremists.
Hollande, who had to be evacuated from the stadium when the bombs went off outside, later vowed that the nation would stand firm and united: “A determined France, a united France, a France that joins together and a France that will not allow itself to be staggered even if today, there is infinite emotion faced with this disaster, this tragedy, which is an abomination, because it is barbarism”. He also said that “unprecedented terrorist attacks are ongoing in Paris”.
U.S. President Barack Obama issued a statement condemning the attacks as an “outrageous attempt to terrorize innocent civilians”.
“This is not just an attack on Paris … but this is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we all share”, Obama told reporters at the White House.
President Francois Hollande was at the stadium, watching France playing world champions Germany in a friendly soccer match, but he left to go to the Interior Ministry.
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France has declared a national state of emergency and has closed its borders after at least 120 people were killed in gun and bomb attacks in Paris.
