The attackers who killed 129 people in Friday night's shootings and suicide bombings in Paris appeared to be split into three coordinated teams armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles and high explosives.

One of the teams talked of Syria and Iraq, where France has launched air strikes over the past year, as they fired on a crowd at a rock concert.

"We can say at this stage of the investigation there were probably three coordinated teams of terrorists behind this barbaric act," Paris prosecutor Francois Molins told a news conference.

"Seven terrorists died during their criminal action."

Molins confirmed that French authorities had a security file for Islamist radicalisation on one of the dead attackers -- a French national who had a criminal record but had never spent time in jail.

The prosecutor said the hunt for suspects had spread to neighbouring Belgium, after a Frenchman who had apparently hired a car used in the attacks was stopped at the Belgian border on Saturday morning, along with two other people.

All three, who were arrested by Belgian authorities, were residents of the Brussels region, he said, adding that none of the three were known previously to French intelligence.

In addition to the dead, 352 people were wounded in the attacks, at least 99 seriously. Molins said the death toll was "evolving".

The night's carnage began at 9.20 pm (2020 GMT) near the Stade de France stadium where France was playing Germany in a friendly soccer match, and where the first of three suicide bombings killed the first of the night's victim.

Over the next 20 minutes there were three machine gun attacks by groups driving black cars in the 10th and 11th districts in the heart of the French capital.

Two were at bars and restaurants, at which bullets of differing calibers were used.

The third, the most deadly of all, took place inside the Bataclan concert hall, which was hosting a show by the U.S. group Eagles of Death Metal and where 89 people were killed.

A hostage-taking ensued, with an assault at 2320 GMT by security forces. Three of the seven dead attackers were killed there. One was shot. The other two killed themselves using explosive belts, said Molins. – Reuters