Obama leads chorus of world outrage over Paris attacks

US President Barack Obama led a chorus of global condemnation of a wave of attacks in Paris on Friday that left more than 120 people dead, as nations pledged solidarity with France.

The coordinated killings reverberated around the world after shootings by gunmen shouting "Allahu akbar", explosions and a hostage-taking at a popular concert venue in the French capital.

Countries such as the United States, Britain, Spain and India, which have experienced their own mass-casualty attacks, were among the first to voice their condemnation.

"It's an attack not just on the people of France. But this is an attack on all of humanity and the universal values we share," Obama said in an address at the White House.

"We're going to do whatever it takes to work with the French people and with nations around the world to bring these terrorists to justice and to go after any terrorist networks that go after our people."

In London, where 52 people were killed and hundreds wounded in a series of coordinated suicide bombings in 2005, British Prime Minister David Cameron said: "We will do whatever we can to help."

Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo, the foreign minister of Spain, where 191 people were killed in train bombings in 2004, raised the specter of a jihadist attack.

"All of this confirms that we are facing an unprecedented challenge, a hugely cruel challenge," he told public television TVE.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose country was hit by two major attacks in 2006 and 2008 that saw a total of 355 people killed, said on Twitter the "news from Paris is anguishing & dreadful".