Bataclan theatre massacre
The Bataclan theatre in 2009
At approximately 21:40, a mass shooting and hostage-taking occurred at the Bataclan theatre on the boulevard Voltaire in the 11th arrondissement. The American band Eagles of Death Metal was playing to an audience of around 1,500 people.[72][73] About an hour into the concert,[84] a car pulled up outside the venue and three dark-clad men with Zastava M70 AKM assault rifles entered the hall.[22][85] The gunmen were three French natives: Foued Mohamed-Aggad, 23 years old, Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, 29 years old, and Samy Amimour, 28 years old. As the band began playing their song “Kiss the Devil”,[86] witnesses heard shouts of “Allahu Akbar” just before the gunmen opened fire on the crowd.[22][85][87] Initially, the audience mistook the gunfire for pyrotechnics.[88][89] The initial attack lasted 20 minutes, until one of the terrorists was shot by police officers who arrived at the scene. A radio reporter attending the concert described the attackers as calm and determined, and that they reloaded three or four times.[87]
Survivors escaped via the emergency exit into the street or made their way onto the roof, with some taking refuge in toilets and offices;[85] others lay still on the floor pretending to be dead. According to surviving eyewitnesses, the terrorists walked among those who were lying down, kicked them and shot them in the head if there was any sign of life. They reloaded their weapons several times and laughed while shooting at people who tried to run for the exit while they were reloading.[90] The French Parliamentary report contains details of how victims’ bodies had been mutilated, such as by eye-gouging, disemboweling, castration, and beheading; however, some French law enforcement officials have insisted that the injuries were caused only by gunfire and shrapnel.[91] The band’s members escaped without injury.[92]
At around 22:00, after Amimour was shot by one of the first responders and detonated his explosive vest, the remaining attackers took 12 concertgoers hostage as police gathered outside the venue.[58][72][87] They threatened to decapitate a hostage and throw the corpse out of the window every five minutes. A witness who escaped told a journalist that the gunmen had mentioned Syria.[88][93] Another witness who was inside the Bataclan heard a gunman say, “This is because of all the harm done by Hollande to Muslims all over the world.”[94][95] During this period, there were further attacks on police and first responders arriving at the scene.[96]
Starting at 22:15, the Brigade of Research and Intervention (BRI) arrived on the scene, followed by the elite tactical unit, RAID.[97] The assault on the theatre began at 00:20 and lasted three minutes.[97][98] Police launched the assault because of reports that the attackers had started killing hostages.[22][87][99] They initially estimated that 100 people had been killed,[74][88] but the toll was later revised to 89,[15] and finally 90.[16][17] Two attackers died by detonating their suicide vests.[22][87][88] Another was hit by police gunfire, after which his vest blew up upon falling to the ground.[22] All twelve hostages were rescued without injury.[100]
Police dog teams from the Brigade Cynophile assisted with body removal because of concerns that there could still be live explosives in the theatres.[101] Identification and removal of the bodies took 10 hours, a process made difficult because some audience members had left their identity papers in the theatre’s cloakroom.