Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was shot dead after zigzagging a 19-tonne truck through a crowd of tourists, locals and families enjoying a fireworks display in the Riviera city of Nice on Bastille Day. Their 13-year-old son is dead, and his twin sister is fighting to survive.
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Phone records examined by authorities showed some of the six being questioned were in contact with Lahouaiej Bouhlel in the days leading up to the attack, the sources said.
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.
The truck attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, was the third major strike by jihadists on France in 18 months. “So that makes it necessary for us to maintain the fight overseas, to continue to fight Daesh where they are, and to continue to fight Daesh on our own territory, while ensuring the safety of French people”, said Cazeneuve, using the term Daesh to identify the organization more commonly known as the Islamic State group.
He said he supported stronger measures like expulsion of radicalised Muslims, and electronic tagging for those at risk of radicalisation.
At the Pasteur hospital, where many injured are being treated, emergency responders and other medical personnel gathered in the courtyard for the moment of silence, standing still in a row and clapping when it was over.
He was “entirely unknown by the intelligence services, whether nationally or locally”, French prosecutor Francois Molins said.
On Sunday, French authorities arrested an Albanian couple in connection with the attack, a Paris prosecutor’s office spokeswoman told CNN.
Investigators continue to work at the scene near the heavy truck that ran into a crowd at high speed, killing scores who were celebrating the Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, July 15, 2016.
After a special security meeting, defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French forces in the US-led coalition struck IS targets again overnight and on Saturday. He said he learned about the Algerian from extended family members who live in Nice.
“Are you defending him?” the man said, incredulously.
Black police officer’s heartbreaking Facebook message days before he was murdered in Baton RougeOthers have left rocks or spat on the pile on the Promenade des Anglais.
“Daesh gives unstable individuals an ideological kit that allows them to make sense of their acts. this is probably what happened in Nice’s case”, Valls said, referring to the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
France’s health minister says about 85 people remain hospitalized after a deadly truck rampage in the Mediterranean city of Nice, and 18 of them are in life-threatening condition – including one child.
Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s estranged wife, who was detained on Friday, was released on Sunday.
Former President and main opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy said on Sunday that “everything that should have been done the past 18 months was not done”.
0400: President Hollande refers in a televised address to the “terrorist nature of this attack” which involved “the most extreme form of violence” and says the death toll at this stage is at least 77.
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Hundreds of French militants have gone to fight alongside ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
