Parisians help Parisians hide from terrorists
Reporting from Paris for 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley interviews witnesses and survivors the day after the November 13th terrorist attack that killed more than 100 people. A survivor named Francois, who asked that his last name not be used, was in the Bataclan concert hall when gunmen began shooting into the crowd.
Wounded in the neck by a bullet, Francois fought his way to an exit of the concert hall and ran to safety in a nearby apartment building, where residents opened their doors to those fleeing the gunmen. Inside, he said, residents on multiple floors helped to hide "hundreds" of people from the terrorists. A stranger on the third floor took in Francois and tended to his wound. From there, he says, he heard continued killings in the concert hall, a police raid, and the explosions of the terrorists' suicide belts.
Watch the clip in the player above, or read the transcript below. Pelley's entire 60 Minutes report about the Paris attack can be viewed here.
Scott Pelley: Once you got outside the concert hall, what happened then?
Francois: When I got outside, I just run. I just run maybe 100 meter to a building. There was someone holding the door and telling everyone to get in. And--
Scott Pelley: Someone had opened a building nearby and was telling people, "Come in here"?
Francois: Yeah. Yeah. So, I just went into the building, just to go up the stairs to the second floor. I just felt the bullet hole in my neck. And, so, I realized that it was pretty-- I was pretty serious-- d-- damaged. I went to an apartment on the third floor. And then I found a girl who was opening her door to hide people from the from the concert.
Scott Pelley: People in apartment buildings were just opening their apartments and--
Francois: Yeah.
Scott Pelley: --and taking people in to hide them from the terrorists?
Francois: Yeah. A lot of people, actually, opened their door. And there were, like, probably hundreds of people from the concert who were in this building just hiding in different apartments.
Scott Pelley: Were people helping you with your wounds?
Francois: Yes. Yes. Yeah. So, the girl was hosting me. She took her shirt and put it on my--on the bullet hole so I can bleed-- not bleed so much.
Scott Pelley: Could you see the police counterattack from the apartment that you were in? Were you looking out the window?
Francois: No. No. I was--
Scott Pelley: But you could hear it?
Francois: Yeah. I could hear s--
Scott Pelley: What did you hear?
Francois: So, I-- so, the first minute after the attack I was hearing rifles again and again. There was t-- shooting people-- yeah, minutes after they were shooting people-- for about an hour, like, shot-by-shot, you know. So, when I heard the police raid maybe two hours after the attack, it was explosion after explosion. They, I heard they had grenades on them. And we heard about three huge explosion, which was them--
Scott Pelley: The suicide belts?
Francois: Suicide belts, yeah.