Eighty-four people are dead and about 50 people are critically hurt as a result of Thursday’s deadly terrorist attack in Nice, French President François Hollande said Friday.
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In the past, most attacks with a vehicle have been relatively small scale, however, often killing at most a handful of people and often less – in some cases, no one died at all other.
The council called for French Muslims to pray Friday for “the memory of the victims of this barbarian attack”.
Wassim Bouhlel, a Nice native, said he saw a truck drive into the crowd.
A lorry drove into crowds watching a fireworks display along a packed promenade during Bastille Day celebrations last night. Nice-Matin newspaper said on Twitter that police were searching the attacker’s home in theNice neighborhood of Abattoirs.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters on the scene that the death toll stood at 80, with scores injured including 18 in “critical condition”. The gunman was reportedly shot and killed by police.
Hollande said in a pre-dawn address that he was calling up military and police reservists to relieve forces worn out by the incident.
The 31-year-old French-Tunisian in Nice apparently was not on any watch list, however, and while Islamic State supporters on social media celebrated the attack, there was no claim of responsibility from the group, according to the SITE group, which monitors jihadist communications.
“France is gripped by an irrational and deaf hatred against Islam and Muslims that pushed it to the head of the coalition against the caliphate”, Dar al-Islam wrote past year, referring to the territory controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. The attack, on France’s national holiday, followed attacks last November in Paris that killed 130.
CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank said “no country in the western world is threatened more by jihadis and terrorism than France”.
“France is filled with sadness by this new tragedy”, he said. If this is a terrorist incident, as this appears to be, this represents a continuing threat to us in the whole of Europe and we must meet it together.
The truck which slammed into revelers late Thursday, July 14, is seen near the site of an attack in the French resort city of Nice, southern France, Friday, July 15, 2016.
At least 84 innocent people have been killed in the attack which came as the country celebrated Bastille Day.
PM Theresa May called the terror attack “horrifying” and said Britain must now redouble its efforts to defeat “brutal” terrorist “murderers” following the attack in Nice.
Tour de France riders including race leader Chris Froome sent messages of support to the victims of the deadly attack in Nice, although organizers did not immediately say whether cycling’s showpiece event will continue as planned.
“We quickly got back to the hotel and locked the door”.
“We have already taken a certain number of steps in connection with preparations for July 21, as you can imagine, and our security services are permanently evaluating the measures that are necessary”, Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, said in a radio interview.
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The Lord Mayor of Bradford led a minute’s silence in Bradford this morning to remember those killed in the terror attack in Nice yesterday.
