The action film “Bastille Day” starring Idris Elba has been withdrawn from French cinemas following the Nice truck attack that killed 84 people and wounded over 200.
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Officials also have at last identified a 7-year-old boy in a coma whose picture had been circulated on social media after no relatives stepped forward immediately after he was injured in the attack.
French President Francois Hollande has canceled his trip to Prague planned for next week following the deadly attack in Nice.
Cazeneuve said that the father-of-three “seemed to have been radicalized very quickly from what his friends and family” have told police. Garino said the woman, the mother of Bouhlel’s three children, had not been in contact with the attacker since they were in the middle of divorce proceedings.
Unlike the perpetrators of those attacks, Bouhlel, a petty criminal with a history of violence and depression, did not travel to the Middle East for training or jihad. However, they are still probing into the authenticity of the Islamic State’s claim that the attacker was one of their fighters.
ISIS is claiming responsibility for the truck attack that killed at least 84 people celebrating Bastille Day in the Riviera city.
Around 500 people in Nice have sought psychological support in the aftermath of the attack, she said.
The driver of the truck was shot dead after barrelling two through the crowd on the palm-lined Promenade des Anglais, sending hundreds fleeing in terror and leaving the area strewn with bodies.
Five children and 21 adults are still fighting for their lives in hospital, the health ministry said.
Speaking about the new wave of fear in the aftermath of several attacks on France, he said: “This latest horrific attack on the French people and the many other nationalities is sadly a pattern of a long series of such attacks”.
The truck zigzagged for two kilometres (1.2 miles) through the crowd before police bullets killed the driver and brought an end to the carnage. She was arrested Friday, a day after the 31-year-old Tunisian plowed through revelers out to see the Bastille Day fireworks on Nice’s famed seaside boulevard.
The uncle said he learned about the Algerian recruiter from extended family members who live in Nice. While they all said he had always been indifferent to religion, some described a recent and very rapid conversion to radical Islam, the official said.
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.
Thursday’s attack was the third major terrorist assault in France in the past 18 months.
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IS also claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks which killed 130 people in Paris, while gunmen in January 2015 attacks on the Charlie Hebdo weekly and a Jewish supermarket were linked to both IS and al-Qaeda. Since the beginning of July, Lahouaiej Bouhlel looked up verses of the Koran online nearly every day, as well as Islamic songs used by Islamic State as propaganda tools, Molins said.
