Paris attacks: More than 140 feared dead after shootings and explosions stun France

'It is a horror'

Reports suggest up to 140 people were killed (AP)

Paris is confronting shock and bewilderment after up to 140 people were feared to have been killed in what appeared to be a series of coordinated terrorist shootings outside bars, restaurants and a rock concert venue.

Up to 100 people were believed to have been killed inside the Bataclan rock music venue where a group was playing before a crowd of hundreds. Reports said more than 40 others lost their lives in shootings and bomb attacks elsewhere in the city. Paris’s Public Prosecutor Francois Molins said he expected the death toll to surpass 140.

One of the explosions - believed to the the work of a suicide bomber - took place near the Stade de France stadium where President Francois Hollande was watching a friendly game.

Mr Hollande later declared a state of emergency and closed the nation’s borders. Around 1,500 troops were deployed. In the early hours of Saturday morning, French police said they believed all of the attackers involved in the shootings and bombings were dead. Police chief Micheal Cadot said they were looking for possible accomplices.

(EPA)

“As I speak, terrorist attacks of unprecedented proportions are underway in the Paris area. There are dozens killed, there are many injured. It is a horror,” he said in an address to the nation.

The series of attacks on multiple locations came ten months after the city was left reeling after the attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine, when 12 people were killed by Islamic extremists.

Amid the swirl of horror of confusion, the focus of the deadliest violence appears to have have taken place at the Bataclan venue, where the Eagles of Death Metal were playing to a crowd of up to 1,000.

There, scores of people were held hostage and attackers hurled explosives at their captives. Police who stormed the building, killing two attackers, encountered a bloody scene of horror inside.

Paris police officials said security officials had launched an assault on the concert hall, killing at least three attackers. One described “carnage” inside the building, saying the attackers tossed explosives at the hostages.

“There was blood everywhere, there were bodies everywhere,” said one witness, named as Marc Coupris, and who said he was inside the hall.

Julien Pierce, a French radio journalist who was in the concert hall when the gunmen burst in, told Europe 1 radio: “Two or three people, unmasked, started shooting kalachikov-type rifles blindly into the crowd…It lasted for ten or 15 minutes. It was very violent. People surged towards the stage. People were trampled. The gunmen seemed very young.”

In addition to the deaths at the concert hall, a police official said 11 people were killed in a Paris restaurant in the 10th arrondissement and other officials said at least three people died when bombs went off outside a stadium.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, and no clear picture of how many attackers were involved and if any were on the run. Jihadists on Twitter immediately praised the attack and criticised France's military operations against Islamic State extremists.

Mr Hollande, who had to be evacuated from the stadium when the bombs went off outside, said in a televised address that the nation would stand firm and united.

“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."

US President Barack Obama, speaking to reporters in Washington, called the attacks on Paris “outrageous attempt to terrorise innocent civilians” and vowed to do whatever it takes to help bring the perpetrators to justice. He called the attacks a “heartbreaking situation” and an “attack on all of humanity.”

Earlier on Friday, two explosions were heard outside the Stade de France stadium north of Paris during a France-Germany friendly football match. A police union official said there were two suicide attacks and a bombing that killed at least three people.

The attacks came as France had heightened security measures ahead of a major global climate conference that starts in two weeks, out of fear of violent protests and potential terrorist attacks.

Mr Hollande canceled a planned trip to this weekend's G-20 summit in Turkey, which was to focus in large part on growing fears of terrorism carried out by Islamic extremists.