The 31-year-old Tunisian barreled through Bastille Day crowds in a rental truck, killing 84 and wounding dozens more before being killed by police. Those attacks, and one in Brussels four months ago, shocked Western Europe, already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration, open borders and pockets of Islamist radicalism.
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In total, 6 people remain in custody relating to the attack that IS has claimed.
Retreating from previous claims, Cazeneuve said Thursday that only local police, who are more lightly armed, were guarding the entrance when Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 19-metric ton (20-ton) truck onto the sidewalk in Nice before mowing down pedestrians who had watched a fireworks show. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday that 59 people were still hospitalized, 29 of them in intensive care.
The Islamic State terror group has claimed responsibility for the latest incident.
In January 2015, 17 people were killed in attacks that began with the shooting of journalists working for Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication that had published cartoons mocking Islam.
According to Molins, the attacker drank alcohol, ate pork, took drugs and engaged in “unbridled sexual activity”.
Relatives living in Tunisia told news agencies that he had psychological problems before leaving for France in 2005. “He carried out the operation in response to calls to target nationals of states that are part of the coalition fighting Islamic State”.
Christian Estrosi, head of the regional government in the area around Nice, renewed charges of serious security failings and inadequate policing.
Thursday’s slaughter was the third major terrorist attack in France since past year.
Molins said that Bouhlel had in the days and two weeks prior to the July 14 attack sought to raise money through a bank loan, which was denied, a cash withdrawal and the sale of his auto. The fury and aggression were a jolting companion to the grief for the lives lost elsewhere on the long waterfront boulevard, where people have created memorials on blood-stained places on the pavement.
After seven hours of fraught debate into the night, during which the opposition accused the government of being lax on security, the lower house of parliament voted by 489 to 26 to prolong the measures for a further six months.
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The local police had neither enough time nor firepower to stop the lorry driven by a Tunisian killer, it said. “He said there were 64 national policemen on duty”.
