A journalist has revealed how the terrorists who massacred her Charlie Hebdo colleagues spared her life - because she was a woman.

Reporter Sigolene Vinson survived the brutal attack on the French satirical magazine, in which 12 people including six of her co-workers and two police officers were shot dead.

She told Radio France Internationale that one of the killers held a gun to her head, but decided against killing her too.

Miss Vinson said the one of the shooters told her: 'I'm not killing you because you are a woman and we don't kill women but you have to convert to Islam, read the Qu'ran and wear a veil.'

She added that the men shouted 'Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar' as they fled the scene.

Charlie Hebdo magazine staff thought a terrorist attack on their offices was a 'joke' involving fire crackers before being gunned down in cold blood, it emerged today.

Scroll down for video

Spared: Charlie Hebdo journalist, Sigolene Vinson (pictured), revealed the terrorists let her live because she was a woman

Shocking: The chilling image from the Charlie Hebdo office shows blood-stained wooden floors, papers strewn across the corridor

Survivor: Charlie Hebdo journalist, Laurent Leger (pictured), who survived the shooting said they initially thought the attack was a 'hoax'

Audacious: Mr Leger (pictured) said he and his colleagues mistook the gunfire for 'fire-crackers'

Gone: Six of the Charlie Hebdo journalists and staff members killed in Wednesday's attack are pictured together in this photo, taken in 2000. Circled top from left is Philippe Honore, Georges Wolinski, Bernard Maris and Jean Cabut. Below them on the stairs, from left, is editor Stephane Charbonnier and cartoonist Bernard 'Tignous' Verlhac

Chilling new details of the Paris massacre emerged as police resumed the nationwide manhunt for the two French Algerian brothers believed to be responsible.

Cherif and Said Kouachi have now spent almost two whole days on the run since Wednesday morning's atrocity, which claimed 12 lives.

Today survivor Laurent Leger, a Charlie Hebdo journalist who was in the room where most of the victims were slaughtered, told how some were laughing when they first heard shots.

'We thought it was a joke, that it was fire crackers' said Mr Leger.

'Then we heard footsteps. The door opened. A guy shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great)

Referring to French police special forces units, Mr Leger said: 'He looked like a GIGN and RAID guy, he was hooded. He was all in black. He had a gun he was holding with both hands.'

Mr Leger said he saw 'barbarism enter the newspaper' as the terrorists called out the name 'Charb', referring to editor Stephane Charbonnier, one of those killed.

'They called out the name of Charb, yes. But after that they fired into the group,' said Mr Leger, who said he threw himself under a table to get away from the gunman and 'escaped his eyes.'

The shooter then turned to his accomplice, with Mr Leger saying: 'He said he thought he had killed everybody, but did not kill women.'

The suspected killers are described as 'extremely dangerous and likely to kill again'.

Armed response: French special forces rush to the scene of a hostage-taking at an industrial estate in Dammartin-en-Goele, where the two Charlie Hebdo gunmen are holed up in a printing business amid firefights with police

Suspects: The three men were named as Cherif Kouachi (left), 32, his brother Said Kouachi (right), 34, and Hamyd Mourad, 18, of Gennevilliers

Unfolding terror: A graphic showing the developments since the shootings at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris on Wednesday morning

Hunt: Armed police train their weapons on a building where the the two Charlie Hebdo gunmen are holed up with a hostage as they sit in a helicopter over the village of Dammartin-en-Goele

A third man who gunned down a woman police officer in south Paris on Thursday with an automatic rifle while wearing body armour has also disappeared.

It emerged today that Paris-born Said, 34, travelled to Yemen as recently as 2011, where he was trained by an Al Qaeda affiliate in marksmanship and other combat skills.

Both French and American officials were aware Said was inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who ran Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Before he was killed in an American drone strike in September 2011, al-Awlaki often called for the killing of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists who insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

The Kouachi brothers made it clear they were taking vengeance for the provocative images, slaughtering the magazine's editor and three other cartoonists.