French lawmakers on Wednesday approved a six-month rollover of emergency rule in the wake of last week’s truck attack on the city of Nice, the third deadly assault in 18 months for which the Islamist State militant group has claimed responsibility.
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Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said the investigation had not yet found evidence linking attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel to terrorist networks.
Speaking on RTL radio, the interior minister said Bouhlel may have been motivated by messages sent out by Isis, but was not necessarily co-ordinating with them.
A source close to the investigation also said that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had visited the Nice promenade with his truck twice before carrying out the attack.
Mr Buchanan says the terror group’s days are numbered, “until finally the last of the lone wolves and small cell types are detected, elimatated and/or prevented from continuing those attacks”.
While previous attacks saw grand displays of national unity, any semblance of cohesion quickly unravelled after the Nice massacre and Sarkozy joins a long line of opposition politicians who have criticised the government.
Flowers in their hands and tears in their eyes, crowds stood on the rocky beach for several minutes Monday looking toward the Promenade des Anglais, the road that had been cleared of traffic for Thursday’s holiday fireworks show.
Lahouaiej- Bouhlel’s estranged wife was released after two days of questioning.
Tension still runs high in France’s southern town of Nice after an attack in which 84 people were killed. He continued driving in a zigzagging course for about a mile and a half before exchanging gunfire with police.
Bouhlel was shot dead by police officers after stopping the vehicle near the Palais de la Mediterranee hotel.
Meanwhile French police sources told AFP the information acquired from acquaintances pointed to “a recent conversion to radical Islam” but that there had been no mention yet of any affiliation to the extremist group in Syria and Iraq.
Mr Molins also confirmed 13 victims of the attack are still yet to be identified.
Tourists have returned to the promenade in Nice where scores of people were mown down in a lorry attack as it reopened amid the news France is to call up thousands of reserve forces to boost security.
The Paris prosecutor says 13 bodies are still unidentified following the truck attack on Bastille Day that killed 84 people.
Following the attack in Nice, 85 people are still in hospital, 18 of them – including one child – in a critical condition.
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“Each time he had a crisis, we took him to the doctor who gave him medication”, Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej Bouhlel told France’s BFM television.
