Another five Tunisians are still missing following Thursday night’s attack that killed 84 people in the southern French resort city and was claimed on Saturday by the Islamic State jihadist group (IS).
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French authorities have yet to produce evidence that he had turned to radical Islam.
But, in a statement to reporters, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve hinted that Bouhlel may have had a last-minute adoption of a more extremist worldview.
Nicolas Leslie, a University of California, Berkeley, student who was missing after a truck drove through a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in Nice, killing 84, died in the attack, the school said Sunday, relaying information it had received from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
He said: “Times have changed and we should learn to live with terrorism”.
Along with dating apps and an apparent romantic connection with an elderly man, images on the mobile phone found in the truck’s cab show Bouhlel grinning with an unidentified friend in front of the large white truck taken days before his deadly attack on the Promenade des Angelais.
“Even if these words are hard to say, it’s my duty to do so: There will be other attacks and there will be other innocent people killed”, Valls told French lawmakers yesterday.
A sea of people – including Prime Minister Manuel Valls – gathered on the Nice promenade, the only sound audible being the snap of camera shutters.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said yesterday that all the victims of the Nice massacre had finally been identified.
Eighteen of the 85 people still in hospital are in a life-threatening condition, the country’s health minister said on Sunday.
Three others arrested previously were still being held, but Bouhlel’s estranged wife was released without charges after being held since Friday.
French media say he researched the route in the days before the attack.
President Francois Hollande had last Thursday announced a plan to lift the emergency measures, but he changed tack hours later after a truck driver ploughed through a crowd at a 14 July fireworks display in Nice, killing 84 people.
The Pope prayed for the end of “terror and death” as he expressed solidarity with the victims and a book of condolence in Nice Cathedral is full of tributes to those who died and their families.
Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is competing in a November primary for the ticket to run as presidential candidate for France’s mainstream centre-right parties, said overnight Hollande’s government had failed to do all it could.
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The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for the attack, though people close to him noted no signs of radicalism, just anger. French warplanes have been involved in the operation in Iraq and to a lesser degree in Syria.
