This article titled "Paris attacks: shootings and explosions leave about 140 dead" was written by Angelique Chrisafis and Peter Walker, for The Guardian on Saturday 14th November 2015 00.38 UTCAbout 140 people have died in Paris in a seemingly coordinated wave of gun and suicide bomb attacks, prompting the French president, François Hollande, to declare a state of emergency and shut the country’s borders.
The most deadly of the incidents on Friday evening saw around 100 people killed at a concert by a US rock group when gunmen opened fire inside the Bataclan concert venue. Police later stormed the venue, killing two attackers and revealing the horror inside.
Officials said shots were fired in at least two restaurants and at least two explosions were heard near the Stade de France, where the national side were playing Germany in an international football match.
A police official told AP two of the incidents near the stadium involved suicide attacks, with three people reported killed.
Hollande called an emergency cabinet meeting before reportedly heading for the Bataclan theatre, which is near the offices of the magazine Charlie Hebdo, attacked by Islamist extremist gunmen in January. “This is a terrible ordeal that again assails us,” he said. “We know where it comes from, who these criminals are, who these terrorists are.”
Hollande had been due to fly to Turkey on Saturday for a meeting of the G20 group of nations, but cancelled the trip.
The authorities warned people to remain indoors where possible and closed the Métro system.
The events brought immediate international condemnation, with the US president, Barack Obama, calling it “an attack on all of humanity and the universal values we share”.
The most significant death toll appeared to happen when up to two gunmen began firing during a concert by the US rock band Eagles of Death Metal, a spinoff group of the Queens of the Stone Age.
“It was carnage,” said Marc Coupris, 57, still shaking after being freed from the Bataclan venue. “It looked like a battlefield, there was blood everywhere, there were bodies everywhere. I was at the far side of the hall when shooting began. There seemed to be at least two gunmen. They shot from the balcony.
“Everyone scrabbled to the ground. I was on the ground with a man on top of me and another one beside me up against a wall. We just stayed still like that. At first we kept quiet. I don’t know how long we stayed like that, it seemed like an eternity.”
“It was horrible, there were so many corpses, I just can’t talk about it,” said a bearded man in a T-shirt as he ran down the street from the Bataclan in shock.
Citing French police, AFP reported that three people were also killed in an explosion outside the Stade de France. Crowds spilled into the field after the blasts were heard, and the PA announcer asked people to avoid certain exits.
Images taken by people living near the Bataclan showed bodies in the street, covered by sheets thrown down by local residents.
A witness called Anna, who lives near the Bataclan, said they heard firing and “threw ourselves on the ground”. In a shaky voice, she told BFMTV. “We saw people running and people with guns. The whole area is sealed off. We don’t know what is happening here. Oh my god there’s a body there. This is horrible.”
Witnesses said a number of people had died when gunmen fired inside a restaurant in the 10th arrondissement of the city. A police official said 11 people had died there, with reports saying there were more deaths.
“I was on my way to my sister’s when I heard shots being fired. Then I saw three people dead on the ground. I know they were dead because they were being wrapped up in plastic bags,” student Fabien Baron told Reuters.
In the rue de Charonne, customers at the Carillon bar and restaurant heard an explosion at around 9.20pm, and assumed it was a firecracker.
Witnesses said a man then appeared and fired a first salvo at the bar and a second at a Vietnamese restaurant, the Petit Cambodge, opposite. The man was then reported to have entered Le Carillon and fired “lots of volleys”.
Hollande was attending the football game at the Stade de France when the attacks began. He rushed back to the interior ministry for crisis talks with the prime minister, Manuel Valls, and interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, and later called the emergency cabinet meeting.
The attacks follow the shootings by Islamist extremists at the office of Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris in January that left 20 people dead, among them three gunmen.
Obama said he did not want to speculate on who might have carried out the attacks, but said the US was ready to help “our oldest ally”.
“Those who think they can terrorise France or their values are wrong,” he said. “Liberté, égalité and fraternité are values that we share, and they are going to endure far beyond any act of terrorism.”
The British prime minister, David Cameron, said he was shocked by the events. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the French people. We will do whatever we can to help.”
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: “My thoughts are with the people of Paris tonight.”
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, said she was “deeply shaken by the news and pictures that are reaching us from Paris.”
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