Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters Saturday that “it seems he was radicalized very quickly”.
Advertisement
Of the 84 who died, 10 were children.
During a visit to Nice on Sunday, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine said 18 people, including a child, were still in a critical condition, while about 85 people in total were in hospital.
Meanwhile French police on Sunday arrested a man and a woman with ties to Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a judicial source said.
Brigitte Erbibou, a psychologist who has long worked in Nice, said Bouhlel’s reported lack of religious conviction may not have precluded a sudden embrace of extremism, noting that people who have resorted to violence in the past can apply that instinct in other situations.
Authorities are trying to determine if he acted alone – but the country’s prime minister has said he had been radicalised quickly. The official provided no details on their identities, and said five people detained previously remain in custody.
“I want to call on all French patriots who wish to do so, to join this operational reserve”, said Cazeneuve of a force now made up of 12,000 volunteers aged between 17 and 30.
An ISIS-run news outlet said the driver “carried out the operation in response to calls to target the citizens of coalition countries fighting the Islamic State”.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility on Saturday for an attack in which a Tunisian drove a truck through a crowd in Nice, killing 84, prompting hard questions in France over security failures.
“Are you defending him?” the man said, incredulously.
As the three days of national mourning began, the French tricolour flew at half mast from public buildings and soldiers patrolled the major cities.
Many families are angry and frustrated that they couldn’t find information about their missing loved ones.
Regional president Christian Estrosi said a request he had made before the parade for more police officers had been rejected.
Valls defended France’s record on attacks, saying security services had prevented 16 over three years, and said the modus operandi of cajoling unstable people into striking by whatever means possible was hard to combat.
Police carried out a controlled explosion on a white van near Bouhlel’s home, in a residential neighbourhood in northern Nice.
Valls also warned that “terrorism will be part of our daily lives for a long time”. Neighbors told The Associated Press that Bouhlel’s estranged wife was one of them.
Nice’s famed Promenade des Anglais is gradually reopening and becoming a shrine to the dead, with memorials set up on the westbound lane of the road where victims were felled by an attacker with a truck.
Joggers, bikers and sunbathers on Sunday cruised along the pedestrian walkway along the glistening Mediterranean Sea, where well-wishers placed flowers, French flags, stuffed animals and candles.
French authorities have yet to produce any evidence that the 31 year-old Tunisian killer, shot dead by police in the attack, had turned to radical Islam. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said American authorities also had no prior knowledge of the attacker, adding that when someone has been radicalized recently, finding them is “worse than a needle in the haystack”.
Advertisement
Many in France are also angry at police and authorities for not preventing the deadly attack, even though France was under a state of emergency imposed after Islamic State attacks previous year in Paris.
