France is under a nationwide state of emergency after a night of horror in Paris during which gunmen sprayed restaurants with bullets, massacred scores of concert-goers and launched suicide attacks near the national stadium, killing at least 128 people.
At least eight militants in suicide vests brought unprecedented violence to the streets of the French capital, in Europe's bloodiest attacks since the Madrid train bombings in 2004.
Armed with AK47s and shouting "Allahu akbar", four militants marched into a rock concert at the Bataclan venue in eastern Paris, murdering at least 82 people and taking dozens hostage.
"They didn't stop firing," said Pierre Janaszak, a radio presenter at the concert by US rock band Eagles of Death Metal.
"There was blood everywhere, corpses everywhere. Everyone was trying to flee."
The gunmen were overheard raging at French President Francois Hollande and his military interventions in the Syrian civil war against the Islamic State group.
"I clearly heard them say, 'It's the fault of Hollande, it's the fault of your president, he should not have intervened in Syria,'" Janaszak said.
Suspicion immediately fell on Islamic State jihadists or al-Qaeda and its affiliates as the perpetrators of the co-ordinated assault that also left 200 injured across six locations.
Investigators said at least eight attackers were dead by the end of Friday night.
More than 500 French fighters are thought to be with Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, according to official figures, while 250 have returned and about 750 more want to go.
In January, 17 people were killed in Paris in attacks that targeted satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket. Another disaster was narrowly averted in August when a gunman was overpowered on a packed high-speed train in northern France.
No arrests had been made by early Saturday morning and it was unclear if any gunmen were still at large. Police were screening hours of video surveillance.
As a precaution, all sports events were cancelled on Saturday in Paris, while access to public facilities such as museums and swimming pools was restricted.
"Terrorist attacks of an unprecedented level are under way across the Paris region," Hollande said in an emotional televised message on Friday night.
"It's a horror."
The president himself was caught up in the carnage and had to be hastily evacuated from the national Stade de France when suicide bombers struck outside during a friendly football international between France and Germany.
At first, very few of the crowd appeared to be aware of the significance of what was happening despite the appearance of helicopters low in the sky. The match continued as other attacks began around the capital.
The worst of the bloodshed occurred at the Bataclan in the trendy 11th arrondissement where more than 1000 rock fans were at the sell-out show.
Four gunmen wearing suicide vests and armed with automatic weapons stormed the venue and began spraying the crowd with bullets.
As screams rang out and survivors ran over the injured or dead to make their way to the exits or places to hide, the militants took hostages and then began executing them.
"We heard people screaming - the hostages particularly - and the threats from the kidnappers," said one survivor, 34-year-old Charles.
Along with about 20 others, he fled to a toilet where he pushed through the ceiling and hid in the roof space.
Three of the militants blew up their explosive vests as elite anti-terror police raided the venues, while a fourth was shot dead.
Another attacker blew himself up in nearby Boulevard Voltaire.
