Shootings and Casualties in Central Paris

French police officials and witnesses have reported an explosion in a bar near a Paris stadium, a shootout outside three Paris restaurants and a hostage situation in a concert hall, leaving at least 40 dead.

Just before midnight local time, French President François Hollande declared a national state of emergency and ordered the borders closed.

According to eyewitness Jim Carroll, 67, who was walking home to his apartment on Rue Bichat at the time of the attack on the restaurants in the 10th arrondissement, there was “a loud explosion” followed by a sound like that of “Chinese fireworks – a long extended spattering that lasted for fifteen seconds.”

“Then there was another explosion and spattering that lasted for a few seconds like the first one,” he added. “Within just a minute there were the sounds of the engines.”

Carroll reported a scene of “chaos.”

Firemen and police immediately barricaded Rue Bichat and all the surrounding streets.

Authorities also evacuated Place de la République and caused a flood of people to cross over the Canal Saint-Martin.

Ambulances are now on the scene.

One of the police officials said there was a separate explosion near the Stade de France north of Paris. It was unclear if the events were linked.

An eyewitness at the stadium filmed the field filled with spectators, which he described in a tweet as a "surreal scene" filled with helicopters.

Another police source reported 100 hostages and at least 15 killed in the Bataclan concert hall.

Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to be publicly named.

France has been on edge since deadly attacks by Islamic extremists in January on satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery that left 20 dead, including the three attackers.

One of the restaurants targeted Friday, Le Carillon, is in the same general neighborhood as the Charlie Hebdo offices.

The country has seen several smaller-scale attacks or attempts since, including an incident on a high-speed train in August in which American travellers thwarted a heavily armed Islamic radical trying to attack passengers.

French President François Hollande and Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve announced that a crisis cell had been set up.

"The president of the Republic, the prime minister, the interior minister are in a inter-ministerial crisis cell," the government said in a statement.

US President Barack Obama called the Paris attacks an "outrageous attempt to terrorise civilians and said, "We will work with France to bring terrorists to justice."

The Paris municipality issued a statement just before midnight local time telling Parisians to stay at home.

A series of bomb and gun attacks left well over a hundred people dead and dozens more injured in central Paris on Friday night.

Some reports put the number of dead at 158.

There were at least seven attacks, all in the east and north of the city.

In one venue alone – the Bataclan concert venue – over a hundred people were killed. A heavy metal band were in the middle of a concert when gunmen opened fire and threw grenades into the crowd.

Witnesses say the firing lasted for at least fifteen minutes. The attackers were apparently bent on killing as many people as possible, leaving the security forces no choice but to storm the building before more people were killed.

Given the nature of the concert it is likely that most of the victims in the audience would have been young people.

As well as the Bataclan the attack sites included the restaurants Le Carillon, La Belle Equipe, Le Petit Cambodge, and a fast food restaurant near the national football stadium. There were reports of gunfire at another site as yet unidentified.

The clearly shocked French President Francois Hollande described the attacks as ‘unprecedented’ and called on the country to stay strong in the face of fear. He said France will be victorious.

Earlier the president had been watching his country play football against Germany in the Stade de France. It was near there that the first of the suicide bombers struck at a fast food restaurant close by.

The game was abandoned and he left for the Interior Ministry. Spectators were kept in the stadium for some time to stop them spilling on to the streets.

With about an hour a series of other attacks had taken place including the assault on the Bataclan concert hall.

A restaurant was attacked in the 11th district by a suicide bomber. Reports say eleven people were killed there.
Attackers killed

The city was immediately locked down. All security force leave was cancelled and 1500 hundred soldiers were mobilised to help bring the situation under control.

By 5am CET police were saying eight attackers had been killed but that accomplices could still be at large.

Hollande ordered all France’s borders be closed. Paris came under effective curfew for the first time since 1944.

Hospitals were overwhelmed as fleets of ambulances ferried the dead and injured to them throughout the night.

Early on Saturday morning it was still unclear if all the gunmen had been captured or killed.

President Obama was quick to voice his condolences to France and to offer all the help the US can give to pursue those responsible for what he called an attack on humanity.

There are reports that some of the attackers shouted that their actions were a response to France’s actions in Syria.

There was no immediate verifiable claim of responsibility but supporters of the Islamic State militant group which controls swathes of Iraq and Syria said in Twitter messages that the group carried them out.

The attacks 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.

France has been on high alert ever since Islamist gunmen attacked the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and a Kosher supermarket in Paris in January, killing 18 people.

A radio reporter in Paris has told of scenes of bloodshed he witnessed at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris on a night of attacks that has left at least 120 dead.

Julien Pearce described the moment gunmen opened fire during an Eagles of Death Metal gig. “I’ve seen 2 terrorists from my point of view with AK47s entering the concert room and firing randomly to the crowd,” Pearce said.

“Everybody was on the floor covering their heads and we heard so many gunshots and the terrorists were very calm, very determined and they reloaded three or four times their weapons and they didn’t shout anything, they didn’t say anything, they were wearing masks and they were wearing black clothes and they were shooting at people on the floor.”

President François Hollande appeared on television shortly after the attacks, declaring a state of emergency and announcing his decision to shut French borders. “We have to be compassionate and we have to be united and keep a cool head. France needs to be strong and the state needs to be strong,” he said. “What the terrorists want is for us to be scared. There are things to be scared about. But in the face of terror we have to be united and we will defeat these terrorists.”