“French lawmakers were expected to debate whether the country’s state of emergency “ imposed after the attack on a concert hall and other venues in Paris “ should be extended for another three months.
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“We are up against challenges and that of terrorism is without doubt one of the largest ones”, the French leader said.
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. Hollande said “it is our honor and our duty”.
After seven-hour of sometimes tense debate, the parliament voted early Wednesday morning in favor of the law 489 to 26 – the fourth time the state of emergency has been prolonged.
Hollande, speaking during a visit to Portugal on yesterday, urged the whole of Europe to make defence an absolute priority.
Romania’s foreign ministry says a Romanian man has died of wounds sustained in the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice.
The ministry said French authorities on Tuesday confirmed the man’s death. He had previously been declared missing.
Romanian President Klaus Iohannis sent his condolences and said the country would remain “together with our European and global partners in the fight against terrorism”.
Scattered violence across Europe is sparking fears that copycats may be striking out after the truck rampage that killed dozens on a Nice beachfront, prompting panicked police deployment and leading to a likely extension of France’s 8-month-old state of emergency.
French officials could not confirm Monday that attacker Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel had been approached by an Algerian recruiter, saying that the investigation is ongoing. Three of the six already had been transferred to the intelligence headquarters on Monday.
Investigators are now scouring the 31-year-old’s phone messages and online activity, looking for possible accomplices and signs that might have pointed to his radicalization.
Meanwhile, Nicolas Leslie, a University of California, Berkeley, student who had been missing after the attack, has been confirmed dead, the school said Sunday, relaying information it had received from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“This bad attack shows that terror is directed against everyone without distinction”, said Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Feelings are raw. numerous dead and injured were children watching a fireworks display with their families, and a sign posted around town demonstrates a strong feeling of solidarity, calling for blood donations and stuffed animals for injured children.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 59 people were still hospitalized after Thursday’s attack, 29 of them in intensive care, out of 308 people injured overall.
Six people are now in custody in the Nice attack investigation, and five are undergoing questioning in the French anti-terrorism agency headquarters near Paris and face likely charges of complicity in the violence, authorities said Tuesday.
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has warned that the country must be prepared for more deadly attacks and will have to “learn to live with the threat”.
Italian news reports said Ascoli and Casati, along with D’Agostino and Muset, had traveled to Nice together to celebrate D’Agostino’s retirement. It said the families had been notified and that the ministry expressed its solidarity “to the family and friends of the victims of the barbarous attack”.
Under a blazing sun, there were few visible reminders Tuesday of the July 14 carnage, save for a handful of flags flying at half-staff and a number of armed soldiers patrolling the promenade.
(AP Photo/Francois Mori). on the famed Promenade des Anglais in Nice, southern France, three days after a truck mowed through revelers, Sunday, July 17, 2016.
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In the latest attack, Tunisia-born Mohamed Lahouiaej Bouhlel drove a 19-tonne lorry through the crowd celebrating France’s national Bastille Day holiday.
