Four days into the investigation, a disturbing picture of Bouhlel’s lifestyle in the weeks and months before the attack is beginning to emerge, including his violent past and “unbridled sexual activity”.
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The French government is defending its efforts to fight Islamic State extremists overseas and at home, announcing new airstrikes against their strongholds in the past two days.
Back in Nice, signs of normal life returned to the promenade, with joggers and visitors enjoying the sunshine, and businesses reopening. French authorities detained two more people Sunday in the investigatio.
IS claimed responsibility for last week’s attack, though Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday that investigators have found no sign yet that attacker Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel had links to a particular network.
Earlier, two more suspects in the Bastille Day lorry attack that killed 84 people were transferred to French intelligence headquarters in Paris to face likely terrorism charges.
On Wednesday, MPs also voted to allow authorities to search luggage and vehicles without prior approval from a prosecutor and to allow the police to seize data from computers and mobile phones.
“While there are no elements in the investigation to suggest at this stage an allegiance to Islamic State nor links with individuals from the group. he (Bouhlel) showed a certain recent interest in radical jihadist movements”, Molins said.
The father-of-three also searched for information about the terror attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando that left 49 dead, and the Paris suburb of Magnanville – where a police couple were killed last month.
One witness told authorities that Bouhlel seemed accustomed to looking at decapitation videos, Molins said.
French officials couldn’t confirm Monday that Bouhlel had been approached by an Algerian recruiter, saying that the investigation is ongoing.
The state of emergency imposed after the November Paris attacks gives the police sweeping powers to carry out searches and place people under house arrest.
Reflecting the widespread criticism of the government’s security measures, Prime Minister Manuel Valls was loudly booed Monday as he came to a memorial ceremony on the Nice shore.
But the calls fell on deaf ears in Nice, with mourners in the Republicans-run city issuing calls for both Valls and Hollande to resign.
Feelings are raw. numerous dead and injured were children watching a fireworks display with their families, and a sign posted around town demonstrates a strong feeling of solidarity, calling for blood donations and stuffed animals for injured children.
Now people have turned the spot where he died into a garbage pile.
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.
Cazeneuve said 59 people are still hospitalized after the attack Thursday, 29 of them in intensive care, out of 308 people injured overall.
Between current reservists, and the call for more volunteers, “we can say that France, with you, is forming a National Guard”, Hollande said Wednesday on a visit to a military training complex in southwest France.
“I know there’s no zero risk, I know perfectly well that we don’t pull each other apart before the victims have even been buried”, Sarkozy told TF1 TV.
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Hartley said to her knowledge there were no Americans among the missing anymore.
