France has begun its third day of national mourning as tributes to victims of the Nice lorry attack grow and investigations into their killer continues.
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The nation has been left wondering whether the attack, in which a Tunisian man plowed a 19-ton refrigerated truck through crowds gathered for fireworks on Bastille Day, could have been avoided – or whether it must adjust to a harsh new reality.
In a statement Saturday, it said “the person. carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of the coalition which is fighting the Islamic State”.
Molins said the attack was “of a premeditated nature”.
He was speaking as a number of people arrested as part of a police inquiry into the attack in Nice arrived under police escort in Paris on Monday for questioning at the headquarters of France’s counter-terrorism department in the western edge of Paris.
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel seemed to have been “radicalised very quickly”.
“Mohamed didn’t pray, didn’t go to the mosque and ate pork”, Sadok Bouhlel, a 69-year-old retired teacher in the attacker’s hometown of Msaken, Tunisia, told the AP.
Eighty-five victims of Bouhlel’s carnage were still hospitalized on Sunday, 18 of them in critical condition, officials said.
But Mr Cazeneuve told France’s RTL radio it can not be excluded that an “unbalanced and very violent individual” has been “through a rapid radicalisation, committed to this absolutely despicable crime”.
Earlier, it was revealed he sent chilling text messages just minutes before the deadly attack.
It came after Bouhlel’s uncle claimed his nephew was indoctrinated about two weeks ago by an Algerian member of the Islamic State group in Nice. That leaves six people still being held in wake of the bloodbath.
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.
Neighbors also described the attacker as volatile, prone to drinking and womanizing.
Bouhlel, who was shot dead by police after the terror attack, was a 31-year-old with three children. A man standing nearby said “Never here”.
He was identified by fingerprints after his identification card was found in the truck, authorities said.
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Many families are angry that they couldn’t find information about missing loved ones, and many are angry at police for not preventing the deadly attack despite France being under a state of emergency imposed after Islamic State attacks past year in Paris.
