A woman who cowered beneath a table as one of the Paris gunmen pointed an assault rifle directly at her survived the massacre only because her attacker's weapon jammed, it has emerged.

The harrowing moment was captured on CCTV from inside a pizzeria in Paris, and shows how perilously close the woman came to death.

The footage, captured at 9.34pm on Friday and obtained by the Daily Mail, shows bullets suddenly ricocheting around the restaurant and patrons diving for cover, before the gunman outside calmly approaches the front door.

The gunman's attention is drawn to two women who are lying under a table just outside the entrance.

He raises his weapon and takes aim at one of the women, who is obscured by the window frame in the CCTV footage.

But the rifle fails to go off, and the gunman quickly turns and walks away.

Seconds later, one of the women can be seen rising to her feet and checking that the coast is clear. She grabs her bag and flees for her life. The second woman then emerges from the same position and escapes.

The Daily Mail reported that the woman who had the gun pointed at her was a 40-year-old who had gone to the pizzeria for dinner and a glass of wine.

She was lying face down on the ground at the time and only saw the gunman's shoes, but heard a "click, click, click" sound - thought to be the gunman's weapon misfiring, or possibly being out of ammunition.

The Daily Mail reported that the gunman was Salah Abdeslam, 26, who was stopped by police near the Belgian border hours after the attacks. The officers spoke to Abdeslam briefly, before releasing him.

CCTV footage from another angle inside the pizzeria also shows a waitress, named by the Daily Mail as 20-year-old Jasmine, wrapping her arms around an older woman, Lucille, who was shot through the wrist in the initial hail of gunfire.

The pair take cover behind the bar, while Jasmine occasionally peeks out to see if it is safe to flee. She cradles Lucille, before they are able to escape to the basement.

The Daily Mail reported that no customers or staff inside the restaurant died during the attack.

Two customers suffered minor bullet wounds, but nearby five people died, including a man who was on his way to the restaurant to collect a pizza.