Voicing shock at the “appalling” assault, Johnson, who was the star guest at the French ambassador to London’s Bastille Day party on Thursday, told the BBC that terror “represents a continuing threat to us in the whole of Europe and we must meet it together”.
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At least 84 people died and 18 were in critical condition.
French President Francois Hollande said the killings were a terrorist attack.
Police shine a light into the cab as they approach the driver’s cab of a truck, in Nice, France, late Thursday July 14, 2016. “The lorry was driven at speed; it was swerved around the road and it was used to crash, maim, kill and injure”, he said. “And France is a great country, and a great democracy that will not allow itself to be destabilized”.
Bastille Day is the country’s national holiday and marks the start of the French Revolution in 1789.
A massive police operation is under way in France to establish whether a 31-year-old French citizen of Tunisian origin acted alone or with accomplices in his attack on Bastille Day celebrations in Nice. No one immediately claimed responsibility.
Police killed the driver “apparently after an exchange of gunfire”, Eric Ciotti, the ranking politician of the Alpes-Maritime department that includes Nice, told BFM television. Photos showed bodies lying in the streets while eyewitnesses said they thought shots were fired between the police and the driver.
Following the horrific attack in Nice, France, the Nice Jazz Festival, which was to have featured Robert Plant, has been canceled.
At least 84 people were killed, including at least 10 children.
Following the incident, Nice Mayor Christian Estrosi tweeted in french, “Dear Nice, the driver of a truck appears to have made dozens of deaths”.
Flags were lowered to half-staff in Nice and in Paris, and Hollande extended the state of emergency imposed after the November bloodshed another three months. Nothing will make us surrender our will to fight against terrorism and we will further strengthen our actions in Syria and Iraq.
A state of emergency was instated eight months ago the day after Islamic State gunmen and suicide bombers killed 130 people in Paris.
“The terrorist character (of the attack) can not be denied”, he said. Islamic State or its sympathizers took credit or were blamed for all those attacks.
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The white 19-tonne truck plunged into the crowd at around 11.00pm (2100 GMT) yesterday night as hundreds of people were on Nice’s beachfront Promenade des Anglais to watch the fireworks for France’s national day.
