In an interview with the Journal du dimanche newspaper, Valls said the Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attack, is encouraging more people to stage attacks.
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Police said a man and a woman were detained in Nice this morning, bringing the total number in custody to seven.
On Friday, 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a truck into crowds marking Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in the southern French city, and fired shots before he was himself shot dead by police.
At least 10 children and teenagers were killed, with around 50 other children injured, some of them “hanging between life and death”, a hospital official said.
The source said police had questioned hundreds of people since Thursday night’s attack, several of whom said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel did show signs of being religious.
But French authorities believe that may have changed.
The Nice incident was the third major attack in France in 19 months, a spate that includes the shootings at the office of the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in January 2015 and coordinated attacks around the capital in November 2015. Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej-Bouhlel told French media from his Tunisian home: “He had some hard periods”. The driver’s estranged wife is also being held by the police.
The accused was identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel.
Amaq Agency, a news agency linked to the militant group, announced that the attack was carried out by IS follower, who responded to a call to target the citizens of the countries participating in the coalition against IS, the BBC informs. It called Bouhlel “a soldier” of its organization.
Some 30,000 people had thronged the palm tree-lined Promenade des Anglais on Thursday night to watch a fireworks display with their friends and families, but the night turned to horror as the truck left mangled bodies strewn in its wake.
“The terrorism threat is will be a fundamental and enduring problem and other lives will be wrecked”, he said.
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Asked if he thought his neighbour, who he said had moved three years ago but returned often to visit his family, carried out the attack on behalf of the extremist group, he said: “I never heard him speak about extremism, I can not believe that he was a member of Islamic State”.
