Officials have yet to produce evidence that Bouhlel had any links to IS.
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Crowds jeered the French prime minister when he joined other officials in Nice to remember victims killed during the lorry rampage on the city’s promenade.
A lawyer for the estranged wife of the attacker says the woman was no longer in touch with her husband.
Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas left the door open to a six-month rollover of emergency rule in line with demands from right-wing politicians, saying the demand was “not incongruous” given that it would emcompasse the anniversary of the attacks of last November. He was killed by police after ramming his truck through crowds after a holiday fireworks display Thursday night.
According to French media, a psychiatrist who saw him in 2004 said Bouhlel had come to him because of behavioural problems and that he diagnosed him as suffering from “the beginnings of psychosis”.
Lahouaiej-Bouhlel’s neighbours described the attacker as “very, very beautiful” with Mediterranean looks who wore so much perfume you could tell by the smell when he was in his rental apartment in the eastern district of Abbatoir.
There were angry scenes as boos broke out and people shouted at Manuel Valls when he arrived at the Monument du Centenaire ahead of a minute’s silence.
But French authorities believe that may have changed.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Monday that 59 people were still hospitalized, 29 of them in intensive care.
Nice’s famed Promenade des Anglais is gradually reopening and becoming a shrine to the dead, with memorials set up on the westbound lane of the road where victims were felled. Some areas are still stained by blood.
He also took a selfie at the wheel of the truck in the days before the attack.
A woman with a potted plant asked if she could put flowers there, unaware of the significance of the spot. A man nearby declared “Never here”. “It (the attack) has broken families apart for nothing”.
The embassy says anyone is welcome to take part in the moment, wherever they are.
In the days before the attack, it is said Bouhlel persuaded friends to send €100,000 in cash back to his family in their hometown of Msaken, 12 miles from Sousse, where a gunman massacred 38 holidaymakers in June past year.
After the latest attack, the government called for volunteers to become reservists who can be called on to supplement the security forces – already on high alert under an eight-month-old state of emergency.
Valls, in the newspaper interview, defended the government’s actions but warned that more lives will be lost to this kind of violence.
Bouhlel’s father, who lives in Tunisia, said his son showed signs of mental health issues – having had multiple nervous breakdowns and volatile behavior, said CNN terrorism analyst Paul Cruickshank.
An Albanian couple in Nice were arrested Sunday over the attack and were being held alongside four others.
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Charlton reported from Paris.
