“By saying this we are telling the truth to the French and tackling the threat with lucidity”, he said.
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A coordinated attack in Paris on November 13 killed at least 130 people in a strike claimed by Islamic State, and a series of attacks in January 2015 that began with an assault on the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo killed 17 people.
The Dubliner, who has lived in the city for eight years, said he was happy to stay in the face of the apparent targeting of France.
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”.
Six people were in custody on Monday including a 38-year-old Albanian suspected of providing Lahouaiej-Bouhlel with a pistol he used to fire at police during the attack.
Following the silence, for which thousands of people flocked to the Promenade des Anglais, there was applause and a rendition of the French national anthem as many of those singing defiantly raised their fists in the air.
The Islamic State group claimed Saturday that the Tunisian man who barreled his truck into a crowd in the French resort city of Nice was a “soldier” of the group.
Meanwhile, France held a country-wide moment of silence yesterday to remember the victims, but mourning was punctured by anger and political division.
Recent mobile and computer searches included images “linked to radical Islam” – from decapitations to chants.
President Francois Hollande’s Socialist administration has come under blistering criticism from opposition conservatives after the attack in Nice, with former president Nicolas Sarkozy accusing the government of bad policies that he says have failed to prevent three major attacks in the past 18 months.
Another disturbing detail was that he sent text messages demanding weapons just minutes before he barrelled his way through the seafront in the mammoth truck. “Now we are finding out that more people are being arrested, and I feel helpless against such evil”.
There are also reports that there were not enough police officers present on the night of Thursday’s terror attack.
He was identified by fingerprints after his identification card was found in the truck, authorities said.
And the crowd in Nice on Monday aren’t the only ones who see the attacks as a failure directly tied to those leading the country.
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Bunches of flowers and candles left on the promenade, many at the exact spots where people were killed, have swelled in number.
