Stéphane T, 39, was ordered into a small room by one of the gunmen along with a dozen or so others at the Eagles of Death Metal gig who were told: "We will not kill you, follow us".
Over a terrifying 180 minutes, the terrorists told the hostages the attack was retaliation for French intervention in Syria.
"They brought us all together and we sat down. They gave us a speech saying: "You can thank President Hollande, because it's thanks to him that you must suffer this.
"We are part of the Islamic state and we are here to avenge our families and loved ones of the French intervention in Syria," recounted Stéphane to French publication L'Humanité.
Stéphane was on the balcony when the terrorists burst in. Like others, he thought it was firecrackers, until the screams cut in.
Immediately he thought about escaping and ran to the doors that lead down to the ground floor, but realised if he went downstairs he could be hit. From the balcony, he saw the terrorists for the first time, holding Kalashnikovs. He listened as they shot for five or minute minutes, recharging many times.
When the terrorists came upstairs, Stéphane and four or five others with him tried to take shelter under seats but they were seen. Two of the attackers approached them but instead of firing they ordered: “We will not kill you, come with us.”
He and about a dozen others were moved into a corridor concealed by a door.
Three hostages were placed in front of the door and Stéphane was placed as a human shield in front of a window looking out onto the street and was told to inform the terrorists if he saw any police.
He stayed in that position looking out of a window for two hours. Looking straight across into another apartment he could see a television was on.
At one point he saw two heavily-armed police men in the road. They nodded at him, and moved on.
The terrorists wanted to use Stéphane and the other hostages - of which two were women - to pass messages to police.
“'Tell them we have hostages, we want to negotiate. we want a walkie talkie'. I don’t know how they thought they were going to get hold of one,” said Stéphane.
The terrorists found out two of the hostages were a couple and said they would send one out to speak to police and if the person didn’t return, they would kill their partner.
One hostage was sent out to tell police: “They are armed, they have explosive belts, you must retreat.”
“They were very determined, a bit elated too. At one point one of the them fired the Kalachnikov in the road and said: “Yes I got one, he was on the telephone'. They were very satisfied with what they were doing.
“They asked the hostages near to the door to describe what they heard outside. ‘Well we can hear people moaning and that’s it. Some are calling out for help.’ They didn’t laugh, but almost. They said: “Good for you, it’s like our women and children in Syria.”
He described the men as young, between 25 and 35 years old, and said one had authority over the other: “He must have been the leader.”
“I was a little surprised, because I found them quite disorganised. They improvised a lot. Particularly making contact with police. “
Stéphane described a 15-minute farce involving the terrorists trying to pass a police negotiator a number to contact them on.
One of the hostages wrote it on a piece of paper, then the other shouted it through the door. But in a tragicomic moment the officer on the other side could not hear properly resulting in a bizarre back and forth.
The hostages were also told to call French TV stations but each call didn’t get through.
“They seemed very amateur. They were obviously determined - they were clearly there to kill - but in the hostage situation they messed up.
Stéphane was convinced the terrorists would blow themselves up and he would die. He never considered being rescued.
Stéphane was trying to lay low, but his phone rang. Managing to put it on vibrate, it continued to buzz with calls and text messages from worried friends who had seen a photo of his gig ticket he had posted on Facebook earlier on.
Police burst in with a vast riot shield. The lights went out and police threw stun grenades. Stéphane felt an explosion at his feet and he fell down.
On the ground, he saw one of the terrorists one metre from him, one hand on his Kalachnikov and the other hand on a detonator.
But, said Stéphane, he didn’t press it "and I don’t know why not”.
He stayed on the ground, deafened by police shots and shouting.
Then suddenly one of the terror police was next to him, shouting at him to get up, who then checked he wasn’t wearing a suicide vest and told him to get onto the balcony and “not look back”.
But Stéphane did, and he saw “a pile of bodies, dead bodies on top of each other, blood everywhere. It was terrible. But at the same time, I was not surprised because for the previous two hours I had heard the groans and cries for help”.
Outside in the street Stéphane was overwhelmed and couldn't believe it was real.
At six in the morning, after hours of police questioning, he was allowed to go home, but without his mobile phone he couldn’t call anyone to pick him up.
So Stéphane, with his torn shirt and blanket, got onto the Metro. People looked at him concerned and asked if he was ok. “Yes, I guess so”, he replied.
