Tearful factory boss: the moment I left colleague inside

In Dammartin-en-Goële main street, no sign of the trauma which gripped this town on Friday. Shoppers nursing their baguettes as usual, yet the taste of freedom so much sweeter now that the two brothers who terrorised France and killed 12 people are now dead.

French police filmed their own account of the fierce gun battle which ended this siege. The brothers cornered in a print company on the town’s industrial estate. One man was hiding beneath a sink upstairs and secretly texting the police messages.

Hostage Catellano:”it was a surreal experience because I offered them a coffee and they told me to call the police.”

— Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) January 10, 2015

The police clearly caught them by surprise though the authorities say the brothers were attempting to escape, shooting their way out to certain death.

Still Under police guard, Mr Catalano appeared briefly outside his home. The brothers let him go before the battle started but he was still struggling with the enormity of hosting France’s most dangerous men.

“I saw a Kalashnikov and a rocket launcher and I understood everything immediately and I thought I was in a film. I experienced a surreal situation. I offered them a cup of coffee. They told me it will be alright, call the police and it is all going to end now. “

The gunmen were so polite they called him Monsieur. Mr Catalano was allowed to leave his office knowing his friend Lilian was still trapped and hiding upstairs.

Catellano: “when I saw them I thought my life was going to end..but they weren’t aggressive.”

— Jonathan Rugman (@jrug) January 10, 2015

“The younger one said go away and I turned and started walking towards the stairs. Then I thought – do I tell them Lilian is still here? That’s when I walked out and I told the police he was there. That’s when it became really difficult for me, knowing he was still inside.”

It’s now believed that both Cherif and Said Kouachi had travelled to Yemen and before they were killed one of them told French television that he was part of al-Qaeda there.

So the journey from these fighters in the Yemeni mountains to a small commuter town near Paris seems to be chillingly shorter than anyone here dared think.