Interior minister Cazeneuve says he can not confirm the attacker’s motives were linked to radical Islam. Of those, 18, including a child, were still in life-threatening condition, Health Minister Marisol Touraine told reporters on a visit to the city.
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Bouhlel rented the refrigerated truck last Monday, bought a pistol and was seen on closed-circuit TV footage visiting the promenade in the following days, according to the security official.
Meanwhile, the attacker’s brother said that, hours before the attack, Bouhlel phoned him and sent a photo of himself smiling among other people celebrating the France’s National holiday in Nice.
Most of those taken in for questioning, including Bouhlel’s estranged wife, who has since been released, described him as violent and unstable. He managed to penetrate more than a mile into the masses before being shot dead by police.
Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej-Bouhlel told French media from his home in Tunisia: “He had some hard periods”. The official provided no details on their identities, and said five people detained previously remain in custody.
Reports published in the name of two Islamic State media outlets said Bouhlel was one of the group’s “soldiers”, although they did not say whether he had coordinated his plan with the group.
As French security chiefs met in Paris, Nice’s seaside boulevard, the famous Promenade des Anglais, was slowly coming back to life.
Bodies are covered at the site of the attack.
A woman asked if she could put a yellow potted plant there, unaware of the significance of the spot.
“Are you defending him?” the man said, incredulously.
The prosecutor’s office says it is working as quickly as possible but would not give a time frame for how long the identification process could take. He said he had requested that the police presence be reinforced in Nice ahead of the fireworks display but was told there was no need.
With terrorist attempts on France on the rise, Valls defended the country’s record on attacks, saying security services had prevented 16 over three years, and said the modus operandi of cajoling unstable people into striking by whatever means possible was hard to combat.
Many in France are also angry at police and authorities for not preventing the deadly attack, even though France was under a state of emergency imposed after Islamic State attacks a year ago in Paris.
Valls, in the newspaper interview, defended the government’s actions but warned that more lives will be lost to this kind of violence.
A special church service was being held at a Nice cathedral Sunday in honour of the victims.
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He was one of several calling for action, and not merely “the same old solemn declarations” from the government, as Le Figaro daily said.
