Some 84 people were killed after a Tunisian man, named Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, drove a 19-tonne lorry through a crowd of people who had gathered to watch the Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice on 14 July.
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The attack came eight months after IS jihadists killed 130 people across Paris, and 18 months after three days of terror at the Charlie Hebdo weekly and a Jewish supermarket killed 17.
Numerous dead and injured were children watching a Bastille Day fireworks display with their families.
Investigators in France have arrested seven people so far in connection with the Nice attack, according to a security official.
Investigators working with Bouhlel’s phone and computer equipment are still try to understand if the man was linked to radical Islamists.
Bouhlel was shot dead by police officers after stopping the vehicle near the Palais de la Mediterranee hotel.
The country held a minute’s silence on Monday (July 18) in remembrance of the people who died on that fateful day.
The prosecutor spoke hours after thousands of people massed on the waterfront promenade where the attack took place for a moment of silence.
But on the city’s famed Promenade des Anglais, passers-by piled garbage on the bloodstained spot where Bouhlel was killed.
Another message the attacker sent at 22:27 local time, just before the attack, asks to “bring more weapons, bring it at 5 to C.”, Nice-Matin reports, citing a source close to the investigation.
In response to demands of the main right-wing opposition party, Les Republicains, the rollover was backed for six months rather than the three months proposed by President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government, which has been accused by its political adversaries of failing to prevent the attack.
Prosecutor Francois Molins said five suspects now in custody are facing preliminary terrorism charges for their alleged roles in helping 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in the July 14 attack in the southern French city.
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.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve hit back Monday, listing a series of laws and extra police forces created under Hollande’s presidency “to face a threat that France was not prepared for” when he took over from Sarkozy in 2012.
Signs of normal life are returning to the Promenade des Anglais in Nice following last week’s deadly Bastille Day truck attack, with joggers and visitors enjoying the sunshine, and businesses reopening.
After a special security meeting, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French forces in the USA -led coalition struck ISIS targets again overnight and on Sagturday.
Islamic State, which is under military pressure in its Iraqi and Syrian strongholds, considers France a key target given its military operations in the Middle East, and also because it is easier to strike than the United States.
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He said France will continue its military operations overseas, which include airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, anti-terrorism operations in Africa and special forces in Libya. Cazeneuve said 59 people were still hospitalized after Thursday’s attack, 29 of them in intensive care, out of 308 people injured overall.
