What was this, the goddamn amateur hour? Trainee Thursday? If the hostages didn't die, the only reason was because the terr'ists didn't want to kill them/didn't have the presence of mind to do so.
I guess GIGN wasn't available...
GIGN was at the other scene.
surrounding the 2 fanatics brothers.
Here, it's the RAID & BRI.
And as always you speak without knowing what happened...
The main entrance was blocked with shop materials (he had many hours for doing it) and also with the 3 bodies already killed when he entered in the shop for the first time.
This is why you see the line of cops not moving because they couldn't advance.
And because they couldn't advance, they had to pull the fire on them by threatening him with heavy fire. Because the risk was that he start to kill hostages.