Witnesses described chaos and bloodshed across Paris on Friday night, after at least 100 people were killed and dozens wounded in multiple attacks.
“It was carnage,” said Marc Coupris (57), still shaking after being freed from the hostage-taking situation at the Bataclan concert 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.
“I saw my last final unfurl before me, I thought this was the end. I thought I’m finished, I’m finished. I was terrified. We must all have thought the same.
“Eventually, when a few gendarmes came in slowly we began to look up and there was blood absolutely everywhere. The police told us to run.”
Coupris, a legal worker, had come from Brittany with 15 friends to see the US band Eagles of Death Metal. Up to 100 people are thought to have died in the venue alone.
Jérome Boucer, shivering while wearing a white shirt splattered with the blood, said: “The concert had started. I was in the audience and I heard what sounded like a firecracker. It was loud but the gig was very loud and I thought it was something that was part of the show.
“I think lots of people did, too. Then they started firing. I saw what I thought was at least two people, then I fled.
“The exits were clearly marked and I just ran. There were wounded, there was a lot of blood. Blood everywhere.
“It felt like a film,” said a woman in tears. who was part of his group.
“It was horrible, there were so many corpses, I just can’t talk about it,” said a man as he ran down the street from the Bataclan in shock.
Initial shooting
A woman in her 20s in a fur-collared coat had been drinking in a nearby bar when people fleeing the intial shooting at the Bataclan ran into the bar.
“They were panicked, wounded, screaming, blood was running all over them. People were having panic attacks; it was horrific.”
The bar locked down but after police allowed it to be open again, she began running down the street towards the 3rd arrondissement to get away as fast as possible.
As she and her friends ran, a young man with her in an overcoat and scarf said: “Crazy people did this. They were crazy, religious, crazy.”
Clément, an engineer, had been in a bar not far away, which closed its iron shutters . He said that everyone crouched beneath the bar.
“Some people in the bar heard shots and the shutters were pulled down. It was Friday night. We were just out with friends for a pastis, as you do on Friday night.
"The first thing I thought of was the Charlie Hebdo attacks and terrorists. People were really afraid."
Ben Grant told the BBC that he was at the back of a Parisian bar with his wife when he heard gunfire.
“I was at the back of the bar, so I couldn’t see anything, I just heard the gunshots.
“People dropped to the ground, we managed to put a table over our heads to protect us and just hold tight until it finished.
“We were sort of held up in the bar because the pile of bodies in front was too much for my wife to walk over. We waited inside until just now we got led out,” he said in a phone interview.
Grant said he was in no position to see the attack, but others told him the attackers were in cars.
“There is a lot of dead people, it’s pretty horrific, to be honest. It’s a little bit difficult to have this conversation right now, I’m not going to lie.”
He said: “It looked like at least maybe seven dead people still outside, the amount of people still injured was huge, it was one of those Parisian bars with loads of people hanging outside having a drink, you know, like they normally do in Paris.
“It was a really full bar at the time, we were just lucky to be all the way at the back, I think.”
Guardian service