A travelling salesman has told French radio that he shook hands with one of the suspects during a client visit to the print works where the fugitive brothers entered this morning.

“I shook hands with one of them and said hello,” the man, who identifies himself only as Didier, told France Info radio . “He replied, ‘Monsieur, we don’t kill civilians."

He explained how he had an appointment with Michel, the owner of the printing and publicity material business. Didier said he shook one of the gunmen’s hands, who he took to be police special operations officer. The man was dressed in black and was heavily armed with at least one rifle.

He said when he arrived at the business his client came out to meet him with what he took to be a policeman, dressed in black combat gear, with a bullet-proof vest. 

“We all shook hands and my client told me to leave.” Didier added that the man he took to be the policeman said: “Go, we don’t kill civilians”. He added, “I thought [that] was strange.”

He said: “As I left I didn’t know what it was, it wasn’t normal. I did not know what was going on. Was it a hostage taking or a burglary?”

The salesman continued: “I am going to buy a lottery ticket. This is the luckiest day of my life.”

Meanwhile, the teacher in the primary school next to the printing company and now in lock-down, is reportedly keeping the children calm by getting them to sing nursery rhymes, away from the windows.