"We originally heard about the shootings ... but not that there were multiple locations, which was probably quite lucky."
Also in the Northern Advocate, Bernard and Elizabeth Boutet were yesterday pitching a French flag with a black ribbon at their Whangarei home, in a show of solidarity for the people of Paris. The couple, co-ordinators of Northland's French language and culture society, Alliance Francaise Whangarei, said the local French community needed to come together to mourn.
Having three family members in Paris meant one Tauranga man's weekend was filled with concerns for their safety, the Bay of Plenty Times reported.
Charlie Tawhiao, manager of Moana Radio and chairman of Te Runanga o Ngai Te Rangi Iwi Trust, was worried about his daughter and granddaughters in Paris when he heard of the attacks. Fortunately, Mr Tawhiao's daughter Tracey, an internationally-recognised artist, and his two granddaughters were safely "holed up" in Tracey's Paris apartment waiting for the chaos to die down.
Also in the Bay of Plenty Times, Tauranga's Kelsey O'Dea, 21, described the explosions which rocked the French national football stadium, marking the beginning of the terror attacks on Paris. She had gone to the Stade de France with a Canadian friend.
"It sounded like a canon going off," she said.
The Rotorua Daily Post reported flowers on the steps of the city's local French cafe by locals feeling heartbroken for the victims of the Paris terror attacks.
Yesterday afternoon Valerie Janin, owner of Le Cafe de Paris where members of the French community like to meet, stopped by her cafe on her day off because people had left some flowers and a card at the door.
Meanwhile, the Post also reported Rotorua woman Kylie Hoyle and her boyfriend had decided to take a short trip to Paris, but instead of a romantic weekend sightseeing they arrived to scenes of death and devastation. Miss Hoyle, 26, contacted her parents in Rotorua soon after arriving at her hotel, just 3km away from where most of the attacks took place.
Hawke's Bay Today reported former Napier Boys' High School teacher Jeff Franklin was an ear witness to the Paris attacks.
"Paris will never be the same again, it can't go back to what it was before," he said. "People will associate Paris more with things like this, and the Charlie Hebdo attacks."
Mr Franklin said it was just luck that he had avoided the attacks.
Also reported in Hawke's Bay Today, a French TV film crew of Stephane Jacques and Quentin Wardavoir were bravely carrying on with their job at the Central Hawke's Bay A&P Show, while worried about the safety of family and friends in the bombings and shootings at home in Paris. The pair were starting their filming for a 20-minute segment on shearing when they learned of the tragedy in a text message from France.
In the Wairarapa Times-Age, the owners of a French cafe in Carterton have received an "outpouring of community support" over the weekend in response to the Paris terror attacks.
The Otago Daily Times reported about a hundred people, mostly French now living in Dunedin, gathered in the Octagon last night to support the victims of terrorist attacks in the French capital. The vigil was organised by local French language and culture group Alliance Francaise de Dunedin.
The ODT also reported one Dunedin woman was two blocks away when terrorists opened fire on a Paris restaurant. Rebecca Grant, 27, the daughter of Southern District Health Board commissioner Kathy Grant, was in Paris when the terrorists co-ordinated attacks across Paris.
The former University of Otago student will stay in Paris but her birthday celebration today will be subdued as she wonders how daily life in the city will change after the "horrifying" attacks.
And the ODT reported a Queenstown hotel was lit with the French Tricolour last night as the resort showed solidarity with Paris. A group of locals and businesses banded together to project red, white and blue on to the waterfront Eichardt's Private Hotel last night.
