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Paris: Chefs are often wary of souffles – but an Aussie chef may owe his life to one.
On Friday night, the in-house chef at Australia's embassy in Paris had been planning to go out and catch some music – at the Bataclan concert hall.
But instead he was ordered to come into the embassy and prepare a meal for the ambassador and guests: roast chicken with salsify and spinach, and a black pepper souffle.
"Had he not been here, he said to me, he would have been there in the theatre and potentially a victim," ambassador Stephen Brady told Fairfax in an exclusive interview, describing the timeline of how the embassy swung into action in response to Friday night's terror attack that left at least 132 dead, including at least 89 at the Bataclan.
"That's the randomness of life. He was shaken up, he's the father of a seven-month-old baby and has a French girlfriend. It just brought home that people have stories – 'I could have been there, I should have been there; that's where I usually sit'."
Another of Mr Brady's colleagues is a regular visitor to the Le Cambodge restaurant, one of the targets of Friday night's terror attack.
Mr Brady said one of his first jobs when he heard news of the attack was to ensure the safety of embassy staff, and their families.
He saw the initial reports on television and "it was clear within minutes that this was something that was going to evolve into a much bigger, more tragic incident," Mr Brady said.
He immediately informed Canberra and formed a "core group" to be on alert for what it could mean for Australia.
"Once [the location of the attacks] had been identified as the 10th and 11th arrondissements [districts], we were instantly aware that Australians could be in the area.
"In a city like this there are likely to be thousands of Australians at any one time. We were lucky that it wasn't peak season. But nonetheless when there's an attack in Paris the presumption that I work on is that Australian could be involved."
At one level, the attack didn't come as a surprise, he said. The official terror threat level has never dropped since the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January, despite public pressure.
"There had not been an official that I had talked with since Charlie Hebdo that had not prefaced their comments by saying 'it's question of when, not if'.
"I've watched the faces of the intelligence community and police leadership at the coal face of the fight against ISIL and I've seen them age. In 11 months they've aged years – these are guys working 16 hours a day, seven days a week, super-aware that Paris was vulnerable."
Following protocol, the embassy alerted a consular crisis group at Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra. They then set up a roster for the coming days, aware that theirs would be a 24-hour operation until further notice.
Those on duty started calling every Paris hospital they knew of, asking if any Australians had been admitted.
"By this stage all you could hear from [the embassy] were the ambulances," Mr Brady said. "It was a night of sirens."
Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop was in touch twice during the night, and Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also called in the dead of night from Germany for an update.
At around 2am the news came of an Australian hospitalised with a gunshot wound.
The embassy's attention "shifted to ensuring her immediate well-being", Mr Brady said.
But they also spent the rest of the night concerned that she may just be the first of many injured nationals. It was not until late in the morning they had final confirmation from the French prime minister's office that Australians were not among the 10 nationalities of the dead.
At one stage there was a strong rumour that a dual national – one of the nationalities Australian – had been either killed or injured.
Unfortunately, he had a very common name – even after scouring databases it turned out there were 80 people of a similar age with the same name, making it incredibly tough to know how to verify the rumour.
"You try desperately through multiple means to establish whether there's any veracity to the story," Mr Brady said. "In this case, mercifully, it wasn't true."
But it took them until Saturday afternoon to be certain.
In the meantime, the ambassador and staff ensured they were offering full support to the family of the injured Emma Parkinson, regularly contacting her family with updates, and the ambassador rushed to her bedside when she emerged from surgery on Saturday afternoon. He also helped co-ordinate supportive calls to her from the prime minister and foreign affairs minister.
Mr Brady said the consequences of the attack are yet to play out. The next key moment is President Francois Hollande's address to parliament on Monday.
Then, in early December, regional elections will give a reading of the country's mood.
Barring new attacks, or unexpected developments, the focus at the embassy now switches to analysis, to feed back to Canberra, on the implications of the attacks for Australian interests.
Australia and France this year initiated a new, closer exchange of intelligence and expertise on national security – there may now be a need for further co-operation in the face of IS' apparently growing international terror capability.
And Mr Turnbull is expected to soon have a telephone hook-up with French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, in which national security will be a main topic of discussion.
