Paris attacks: Charlie Hebdo journalist says gunman spared her because she was a woman

The terrorists told her to convert to Islam and to read the Koran

A victim is evacuated on a stretcher after armed gunmen stormed the offices of the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in Paris

A journalist has revealed how gunmen who killed 12 people at the offices of a French satirical newspaper spared her because she was a woman – but told her to convert to Islam.

Sigolène Vinson, a freelance journalist who was working in the Charlie Hebdo offices on the day of the attack, told Radio France Internationale that a gunman screamed at his partner “We don’t shoot women, we don’t shoot women”.

Members of the French intervention gendarme forces arrive at the scene of a hostage taking at an industrial zone in Dammartin-en-Goele, northeast of Paris

She described how one of the attackers pulled her out of her hiding place behind an office wall and pointed his assault rifle at her head as if to shoot her, before changing his mind.

“Don’t be afraid, calm down,” she says he told her. “I won’t kill you. You are a woman – but think about what you are doing. It’s not right.”

He added: “I will not kill you because you are a woman and you cannot kill women but you have to convert to Islam and read the Koran.”

Northern France is today on high alert today amid reports of further shootings and hostage taking in the capital Paris and an outlying town.

Police have confirmed that two people are dead after a gunman sized several hostages as a Kosher supermarket serving the Jewish community in eastern Paris.

French news agency AFP says the hostage taker in the Kosher supermarket knew at least one of the two men alleged to have carried out the Charlie Hebdo massacre.

Yesterday a man with an assault rifle shot a police officer in a southern suburb of Paris.

AFP says police have confirmed the shooting was linked to Wednesday’s assault on the newspaper’s offices.