Shocked, their voices trembling, French witnesses gave harrowing accounts of hiding under restaurant tables and running from explosions as India's financial hub Mumbai came under attack.

Johana, a 24-year-old tourist travelling with her cousin, was having dinner at the Leopold restaurant in Mumbai's Colaba tourist district when she spotted several young men with large rucksacks slung over their shoulders.

"They took weapons out of their sacks, lobbed three grenades and began shooting at anything that moved with their automatic weapons. There were several dead," Johana told AFP at a Paris airport soon after her arrival.

The tourist, who declined to give her full name, described the assailants as young men whose faces were not covered and ‘looked Indian’.

"People ran out of the restaurant while others, like us, hid under the tables. Some found refuge in the kitchens and they didn't make it," she recounted, her voice shaking.

After ten minutes of gunfire, the two terrified young travellers left the restaurant and ventured out into streets that were crowded with people looking for cover.

French businessman Gilles Andrier said he was seated at a table with 15 financial analysts at the restaurant of the five-star Oberoi/Trident hotel when the violence erupted.