President Francois Hollande’s Socialist administration has come under blistering criticism from opposition conservatives after the attack.
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Bouhlel had also carried out daily searches from the start of July of jihadist propaganda websites showing violent images.
Before the day was out, the dark clouds were back over his re-election hopes.
Italy says five of the 84 dead in the Nice truck attack were Italians, including two couples celebrating a recent retirement.
Hours after the July 14 attack in Nice, the same man filmed the bloody scene on the promenade.
After the latest attack, the government called for volunteers to become reservists who can be called on to supplement the security forces – already on high alert under an eight-month-old state of emergency.
“Before there was still a collective reflex to rally behind the government, but now the need to hold someone to account has destroyed that”, political analyst Thomas Guenole said.
People boo French prime minister Manuel Valls, center, and Health Minister Marisol Touraine, left, after a minute of silence on the famed Promenade des Anglais in Nice, southern France, to honor the victims of an attack near the area where a truck mowed through revelers, Monday.
Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, who oversees terrorism investigations in France, said people interviewed by police described the Tunisian father of three as “someone who did not practice the Muslim religion, ate pork, drank alcohol, took drugs and had an unbridled sexual activity”. “Those links, for the moment, have yet to be established by the investigation”.
In recent years Nice has also seen a disproportionate number of young Muslims joining jihadist groups fighting in Syria and Iraq, prompting local authorities to put in place a range of measures meant to spot radicalization and encourage friends or family members to report what Pradal called “weak signals” such as changed eating habits or sudden interest in religion.
As investigators piece together details about his motives and planning, it emerged that Bouhlel had used the rented truck to stake out the Nice seafront for two consecutive days before striking. Like them, the Nice attack was claimed by Islamic State although no hard evidence linking Bouhlel to the militant group has been found.
Pradal said the attack in Nice, which follows two mass killings by Islamic extremists in Paris previous year, shows that his city represents a particular target for extremists because of its long history as a Mediterranean melting pot that is tolerant of all nationalities and religions.
Dozens of people remain in hospital after the attack.
The detained suspects are four men – identified as Franco-Tunisians Ramzi A. and Mohamed Oualid G., a Tunisian named Chokri C., and an Albanian named Artan – and a woman of dual French-Albanian nationality identified as Enkeldja, Molins said.
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The attack has sparked a national debate about whether security officials did all they could to prevent the attack – the third mass slaughter in France over the past 18 months.
