A TERRIFIED man from the North-East said he was convinced he was going to die as he hid among dead bodies while gunmen opened fire at a concert in Paris.

Michael O'Connor, from South Shields, was dancing by the stage at the Bataclan concert hall with French girlfriend Sara Badel when gunmen wearing suicide belts burst in.

The couple dropped to the ground and stayed there for over an hour as a gunman began firing "indiscriminately into the crowd," Mr O'Connor, 30, said.

He told BBC One's Panorama programme: "I was lying over one side of Sara and to one side was another girl who I put my arm over. Behind her there was dead bodies."

A total of 89 people were killed in the Bataclan massacre. Responsibility has been claimed by Islamic State.

Mr O'Connor started to say his goodbyes and turned to his girlfriend.

He told BBC One's Panorama programme: "I was close enough to give her a little kiss and tell her ' I love you'. If I do not survive ... tell everybody back home that I really love them."

Her response was that "this is not how it is going to end, we are not going to die like this" and armed police eventually took control of the scene.

Police told anyone who was in the crowd to wave their hands and "a lot of people who I thought were alive and were pretending to be dead were not moving", Mr O'Connor recalled .

He said: "On the way out, the floor was thick with blood. We had to step over a lot of dead bodies. We had to step over terribly, terribly injured people."

Then there was another massive explosion outside in the street as two of the gunmen blew themselves up, a third was shot dead by police.

While they were on the ground, plaster showered them from ceiling after an explosion.

Ms Badel said "I thought we were going to die" from asphyxiation.

The couple also heard the killers praying in Arabic and saying in French "the reason we are here is because of Francois Hollande".

Mr O'Connor said "they want us to become an intolerant society" and to be polarised as it will help their plans to radicalise people.

Another British concert goer who crawled past dead bodies to get out alive said the struggle to escape the massacre "was like an eternity".

Mark Backwell, 50, of south-west London, had mistaken the gunfire for firecrackers at first, but dropped to the ground alongside everyone as the horror unfolded. He was hit by two bullets but not seriously injured.

He told The Sun: "I saw how close to the exit I was. There was the body of a young guy next to it - I don't think he was alive, there was blood coming from his face - but he wasn't blocking it.

"There were other bodies but I don't know how many. I was only concerned with myself and keeping alive, which may sound selfish, but what else could I do?

"There were two steps down to the exit and in a moment of clarity I dragged myself down them, scrambling all the way. The gunfire was still cracking."

Mr Backwell was helped by a woman at a nearby coffee shop before doctors arrived.

Briton Nick Alexander died at the venue.