Red Mosquito

Parisians who live in the neighbourhoods that were under attack tonight have to make their way home. A few are staying put in front of the Bataclan, where they’re held about 400 metres away by police force, while others are now leaving.

A hashtag, #portouverte (Open Door) is now underway: Parisians are offering their hospitality for those who might not be able to take the subway, or just don’t want to right now.

A man named Benjamin Cazenoves is communicating via social media from inside the concert hall.
In the post he says is on the first floor of the Bataclan and there are serious injuries.
He says there are other survivors inside but they are being cut down one-by-one. He asks for help on the first floor.

tragabigzanda wrote:Jesus Christ...

Strat, honest question for a fellow mountain dweller: Do you sometimes feel extra safe living in a fairly remote location, or do you see shit like this and think "I'm not safe anywhere"? Because I waffle between the two.

LoathedVermin72 wrote:I feel like crying and throwing up simultaneously

“It was carnage,” said Marc Coupris, 57, still shaking after being freed from the hostage-taking 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.

Jérome Boucer, shivering in the cold night wearing a white shirt splattered with the blood of the victims and wounded, 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 bearded man in a death metal t-shirt as he ran down the street from the Bataclan in shock.

A woman in her twenties 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 and 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.”

tragabigzanda wrote:Jesus Christ...

Strat, honest question for a fellow mountain dweller: Do you sometimes feel extra safe living in a fairly remote location, or do you see shit like this and think "I'm not safe anywhere"? Because I waffle between the two.