At least 60 people were reported to have died on Friday night in what appeared to be a series of coordinated terrorist shootings outside bars, restaurants and a rock concert hall in eastern Paris. A further 100 people are being held hostage.
Two explosions were also heard near the Stade de France sports stadium five miles away during a France v Germany football friendly. The French president, Francois Hollande, was hustled away from his seat in the stand.
Police sources said several people were feared to have died – and many others were wounded – when a gunman sprayed bullets at passers by and outside the Bataclan rock music venue near the Place de la Republique. Late on Friday night a gunman was reported to be holding several people hostage within the concert hall.
Minutes earlier, there were two separate gun attacks on restaurants and bars near the Canal Saint Martin – also in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. One police officer described the scene as "carnage...a massacre".
Lone gunmen were reported to have sprayed the bars with bullets, leaving several customers dead or wounded.
Police sources said that at least18 people died in the attacks.
The attacks occurred ten months after the jihadist shootings which killed 20 pepple at the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine, less than a mile from last night’s shootings.
Two explosions were clearly heard within the Stade de France football stadium. Police said that a grenade appeared to have been hurled at a bar near the stadium. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
The three gun attacks in the 10th arrondissement were reported to have occurred at around 9.30pm, local time, including one outside a restaurant-bar called Le Cendrillon on the Rue de la Fontaine. The pavements outside the bar were said to have been crowded with Friday-night revellers, who had spilled onto the street on an unseasonably warm evening.
