A French parliamentary inquiry last week criticised numerous failings by the intelligence services over attacks in January and in November 2015 which left a total of 147 people dead. “He would become angry and he shouted… he would break anything he saw in front of him”, Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej Bouhlel told BFM television. The officers backed away after a brief standoff.
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French President Francois Hollande met with his defence and security chiefs and cabinet ministers as criticism from the opposition and media mounted over security failings after the third major attack in France in 18 months.
Cazeneuve tried to defend his police force’s record, but his words rang hollow.
“What I know is that he didn’t pray, he didn’t go to the mosque, he had no ties to religion”, said the father, noting that Bouhlel didn’t respect the Islamic fasting rituals during the month of Ramadan – an account seconded by neighbors in Nice.
The perpetrator was acting in response to the group’s call for attacks on citizens of countries taking part in an global coalition fighting IS in its Iraqi and Syrian territories, the statements said.
Bouhlel’s father insisted in comments made to AFP that his son was not religious.
“There was an understandably muted tone to the markets… the latest tragedies in France making everything seem a bit frivolous”, Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell said.
The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the July 14 terrorist attack in Nice, France, which killed 84 people and injured more than 200, in a statement released on Saturday, July 16.
“The world mustn’t stop”, he said. The suffering is far from over. Two days after the atrocity, some families were still hunting for missing loved ones, going from hospital to hospital to find relatives who had disappeared in the bloody chaos of the truck’s rampage.
He and his wife had three children, but she had demanded a divorce after a “violent argument”, one neighbour said.
“The large Recollets family has just lost one of its own”, the school said.
And as forensic scientists, backed by armed police, searched his apartment in a four-storey block in a working-class neighbourhood of Nice, neighbours said they had little to do with the man, who was often seen drinking beer.
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The Nice regional administration defended its security measures, but acknowledged that the truck driver was able to barrel past a barricade of police vehicles by simply driving onto a sidewalk. Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll warned against attempts to divide the country, calling for “unity and cohesion”. Still, the message was heard, prompting the security announcement later from Cazeneuve.
