At 9.47pm on Friday November 13, French striker Olivier Giroud scored the first goal in a friendly football match against Germany. The supporters of Les Bleus in the Stade de France roared with delight — all except for Fran?ois Hollande.

The French president, who had gone to the game with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German foreign minister, had just been told two terrorists had detonated explosive belts outside the stadium — the first suicide bombers to hit France. Early reports of shootings in central Paris suggested co-ordinated attacks of a scale greater than those on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a Jewish supermarket in January.

Mr Hollande decided to keep crowd and players unaware of the unfolding atrocities, according to a person who was with him. The gates would be discreetly locked and fans herded on to the pitch after the game. The decision prevented further carnage: a third terrorist was waiting outside to blow himself up. In the end he killed no one but himself.