As new details emerged of Friday's hostage crisis in France, authorities beefed up security ahead of Sunday's mass rally in Paris for solidarity and freedom. Surveillance of French terrorists Cherif Kouachi (left) and his brother Said was dropped six months before their deadly terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo office. Credit:AFP/Handout Michel Catalano, the owner of the Dammartin print works who was held hostage by the Kouachi brothers in Friday's siege, told reporters he had thought he was about to die when he saw them approach his business. "I could see from a window that there was a man with a rocket launcher and a Kalashnikov," he said. He told his employee Liliane Lapere to hide and he did so, remaining hidden inside the factory until the evening raid by security forces.

Mr Catalano then met the Kouachi brothers at the door, fearing the worst, but they said "Don't worry, we just want to come in." Victim: Francois-Michel Saada. Credit:AFP/Handout He made coffee for them and dressed a superficial wound that one of the brothers had sustained. "I wasn't scared," Mr Catalano said. Victim: Yoav Hattab, 21. Credit:AFP/Handout

"I don't know how I managed to stay calm under those circumstances - it was a situation I have never been faced with before in my life. "After all, right from the start, I imagined I wouldn't be alive any longer [at the end of the day]." Victim: Yohan Cohen, 22. Credit:AFP/Handout He hid in his office when the brothers exchanged fire with police. He then asked if they would let him leave, and they agreed. He left the building hours before the siege's bloody end.

Victim: Teacher Philippe Braham. Credit:AFP/Handout "I must admit that in fact they [the brothers] weren't aggressive as far as I was concerned," . "I didn't get the impression they would harm me, as unbelievable as it sounds. Perhaps they had an ounce of humanity because they let me out." One of the hostages at the kosher supermarket in eastern Paris revealed that a fellow hostage died while trying to take Amedy Coulibaly's gun during the siege. 'Michael B' told Le Point newspaper the hostage tried to grab a gun Coulibaly had placed on the counter but it did not work.

"He fired on the person who did it and he died instantly," he said. The four victims of the supermarket attack have been named as Yoav Hattab, 21, teacher Philippe Braham, Yohan Cohen, 22, and Francois-Michel Saada. Their names were released by the Representative Council of French Jewish Institutions. Security was boosted again in France on the weekend, with armed officers patrolling Eurostar trains and Metro stations. There was a tense atmosphere in Paris as officials revealed plans for tomorrow's rally which is expected to be attended by hundreds of thousands of French people, as well as foreign leaders including the Prime Minister of Great Britain. Loading

Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve said it would be a unique moment, "first and foremost for the symbolic value of this gathering, paying respect to the 17 people who have died." It would also show France's commitment to the democratic principles of the Republic, he said.