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ANew Zealand man living in Paris has described the moment a bullet brushed past his wife's neck as terrorists attacked a restaurant she was walking to.
Natacha Panot, wife of Kiwi artist Mark Harfield, was walking to Cambodian restaurant Le Petit Cambodge, in Paris's 10th district, to get some dinner on her way home at about 10.15pm on Friday.
"She heard what she thought was fireworks, and saw lots of light and explosions - which she thought was odd.
"Nothing penetrated her neck - she hasn't got a cut or a bullet wound - she's traumatised but she's physically fine."
He said she had a very sore shoulder and felt like her neck was burning.
Natacha Panot. Photo / Facebook
"She still thought it was fireworks - it's not like the Tour Eiffel - it's not a famous tourist neighbourhood, so the last thing she thought it would be was a terrorist attack.
"But then she saw people were tipping tables up and using them as shields. People were dropping down and they weren't getting up.
"She heard someone standing over a person calling their name and the person wasn't responding and she thought 'oh my God, something's going on here'."
"I got hit by something in the neck," Ms Panot wrote on her Facebook page. "I thought [it] was a firework so I kept walking until I got hit."
Mr Harfield said the gunman was in front of Ms Panot, so she was able to retreat and managed to get away.
She headed to his house in the 18th district before the pair went to a hospital together to get her checked out.
"She's in total trauma," Mr Harfield told the Herald this morning.
"She wants to get out of Paris. She's been given a week off work - but she's too scared to put the lights on or stand by a window. She can't sleep."
"In Paris they have set up psych teams in all the town halls because there are a lot of people traumatised."
Mr Harfield, father of two children aged 12 and 14, said he wasn't sure what to do himself
"As a New Zealander living in Paris, it's not that easy to just pick up and rearrange everything. It's not a decision you can take too lightly - it all depends what happens here in Paris happens in the next few months."
Mr Harfield said everyone in the city was anxious, and unconfirmed rumours of other shootings were floating around.
"It's night time here and outside the window - we look out on to many windows - and tonight there is a candle burning in most windows."
After the Charlie Hebdo shootings in January, he said "regular people" were still able to feel safe and distanced from the terrorism because the targets were so specific.
"Unless you were a politically motivated cartoonist, then you could say 'ok, they won't get me,' but this time it was just a regular neighbourhood - it's not an area you can pinpoint and say 'I'm not one of them, so I'm safe' - it was just people enjoying themselves on a Friday night."
