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A suicide bomber who tried to enter France’s packed 80,000 capacity national football stadium was stopped by heroic security guards.

Thousands of supporters watching France's friendly against Germany heard two loud explosions outside the Stade de France about 15 minutes in.

The guard - identified only by his first name, Zouheir - said his colleagues discovered the attacker's suicide vest while searching him at the entrance.

The attacker detonated the vest as he backed away from security said Zouheir, who was told what happened by the security team at the gate.

A police officer said the suspect may have aimed to detonate his vest inside the stadium in order to provoke a deadly stampede, reports WSJ.com.

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(Image: Sky News)

Meanwhile it has emerged that one of the suicide bombers who targeted Paris was a young Frenchman flagged in the past for links with an Islamic extremist activity.

Two French police officials said the man was among attackers who blew himself up after a rampage and hostage-taking in a Paris concert hall.

French media say he was from Cour Couronne near Paris and "was known as being radicalised".

And the BBC's Frank Gardner reports the killers were members of a self-contained terro cell and had travelled to Syria, citing Whitehall sources.

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Earlier, police officials said at least one of the suicide bombers who targeted another site, France's national stadium, was found to have a Syrian passport.

None of the attackers has been publicly identified.

The fallout from Friday night's barrage of terrorist violence was felt far and wide throughout France on Saturday.

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Many in the nation spent a sleepless night glued to TV and online reports detailing the horror of the coordinated assault that left at least 128 people dead and more than 300 wounded from shootings and suicide bomb attacks.

Francois Hollande, President of France, declared three days of national mourning at a news conference Saturday.

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He squarely put the blame for the attacks on ISIS, which has claimed credit for the carnage.

"It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army against France," a visibly shaken Hollande said.

Movie theaters, museums and other public institutions in the city and environs announced early closings on Saturday, on the heels of the shootings and hostage situation that unfolded at one of the city's most popular concert venues, the Batalcan, yesterday.

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