Eighty-four people died in Thursday’s attack and 85 remain in hospital.
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A man holds a French flag at a memorial service for the victims of the Nice terror attack.
Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel killed at least 84 people and injured hundreds of others as he rammed a 19-tonne lorry into the crowd at the Bastille Day celebrations on Thursday night. Nevertheless, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Bouhlel may have undergone a rapid change.
Bouhlel’s mobile phone which the police retrieved after shooting him at the site of the terror attack is proving to be the most crucial source of information, reports the Telegraph.
It later emerged that the killer had checked out the scene on the two days previous to the attack in his white truck. 2200: A fireworks display attended by some 30,000 locals and tourists, including many children, begins near a tourist office on the Promenade des Anglais, a wide boulevard lined with palm trees and vast walking areas on the water’s edge that was closed to traffic for the occasion. He was caught on surveillance cameras twice rehearsing the journey that he would take. Travelling at 90 kilometres per hour (55 mph), the truck blasted through the obstacles. City Hall authorities noted that barely 45 seconds later the attacker was shot dead by police.
– Who was the assailant?
The attack occurred when Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a Tunisian living in Nice, drove his truck through a crowd.
His identity papers were found in the truck, along with a pistol and ammunition and a number of fake weapons including two replica assault rifles. His body was found on the passenger seat, said the prosecutor.
Molins said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had had various brushes with the law since 2010 for making threats, theft and violence, including a conviction in March this year for which he was given a six-month suspended sentence. Bouhlel’s ex-wife was arrested Friday and released Sunday.
Another poll published on Tuesday asked voters who they did not want to see elected leader of France next June: 73 percent said Hollande, but the percentage hostile to far-right leader Marine Le Pen, who some believe will benefit from a climate of voter alienation, topped 60 percent.
Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had not previously shown any sign of being religious, and “ate pork, drank alcohol, took drugs and had a promiscuous sex life”, Molins said, outlining police evidence.
French President Francois Hollande called the massacre an act of terrorism, and authorities are hunting for possible accomplices as they try to determine whether Bouhlel had links to extremist groups. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the truck attack that killed 84 people on France’s national holiday, a news service affiliated with the jihadists said on July 16.
The probe is being handled by anti-terrorism investigators. French lawmakers were expected to debate whether the country’s state of emergency – imposed after the attack on a concert hall and other venues in Paris – should be extended for another three months.
What is clear, however, is that the tragedy in Nice is being exploited by the Socialist Party (PS) government to justify escalating the Middle East war and its austerity and police-state measures in France-all of which apparently played some role in triggering the attack.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls says security forces foiled what could have been a “particularly deadly” terrorist attack shortly before Euro 2016.
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France later called on young “patriots” between 17 and 30 to join the reserves.
