Earlier Thursday, French officials defended the government’s security measures in Nice on the night of the Bastille Day attack, even as the interior minister acknowledged that national police were not, as he had claimed before, stationed at the entrance to closed-off boulevard during the attack.
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Valls also said suspected islamist Reda Kriket, arrested near Paris in March with an arsenal of weapons, had “definitely” been planning to target the Euro 2016 football tournament in France, which wrapped up without an attack just over a week ago.
They are people who may have been in recent contact with Lahouaiej-Bouhlel or who may have helped him get the gun he used in the attack, Mr Molins said.
Police interviewed hundreds of people close to Bouhlel, who said he had shown no interest in his Muslim religion until recently.
He said photos and videos linked to radical Islam and Islamic State had been found on his telephone and computer.
French MPs will now mull a fourth extension of the eight-month-old state of emergency, as criticism mounts of the Socialist government’s response to a slew of extremist attacks.
Preliminary charges are expected to be filed against five people detained in the aftermath of last week’s terror attack in Nice, France, after a French anti-terror prosecutor recommended charges, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday. Unnamed officials in French law enforcement told BuzzFeed News the suspect was not religious and hadn’t been communicating with ISIS before the massacre.
In a statement, Cazeneuve accused the paper of conspiracy theories and maintains that several “heroic” national police – who shot dead the attacker – were stationed further down the promenade. The uncle said he learned about the Algerian recruiter from extended family members who live in Nice.
Hollande said “there’s no room for polemics, there’s only room for transparency”.
Under a blazing sun, there were few visible reminders of the July 14 carnage, save for a handful of flags flying at half-staff and a number of armed soldiers patrolling the promenade.
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Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, drove the huge truck into crowds gathered during the annual Bastille Day celebration. 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. Among them was Bouhlel’s ex-wife, who was reportedly released from custody Sunday morning, according to authorities speaking to local media.
