On Nice’s Riviera, signs of normal returning after attacks

Five people detained after last week’s massacre in Nice are due to appear before a judge Thursday, as France is set to pass a law extending the state of emergency. He said a review of Bouhlel’s computer and phone showed online searches relating to IS, other jihadi groups and violent images.

Someone has scrawled “coward!” at the spot near where Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was shot dead by police in his truck after careering through a crowd, killing 84 people on Thursday night.

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.

He lived a life “far from religion”, eating pork, taking drugs and indulging in a “wild” sex life, French prosecutor Francois Molins said.

They include a 40-year-old whom Bouhlel had known for a long time and a 38-year-old Albanian, detained along with his girlfriend and suspected of providing the attacker with an automatic pistol.

The suspects are four men – two Franco-Tunisians, a Tunisian and an Albanian – and one woman of dual French-Albanian nationality, Molins said. In January 2015, 17 people were killed in attacks that began with the shooting of journalists working for Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication that had published cartoons mocking Islam.

France has said it will step up its involvement in the USA led coalition attacking bases of the militant group in Iraq and Syria.

Cazeneuve said Thursday that only local police, who are more lightly armed, were guarding the entrance to the Promenade des Anglais when Bouhlel drove his truck down it. Cazeneuve then launched an internal police investigation into the handling of the Nice attack.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve’s clarification comes after a newspaper accused French authorities of lacking transparency in their handling of the massacre.

As Nice showed signs of slowly returning to normality – with joggers, cyclists and sunbathers making the most of blazing sunshine – the French prime minister, Manuel Valls, urged MPs to back a three-month extension of the emergency powers imposed after the Paris attacks last November.

“I know theres no zero risk, I know perfectly well that we dont pull each other apart before the victims have even been buried”, he said. He insisted any police “shortcomings” will be carefully addressed, but he defended French authorities’ actions.

From 1 July, Bouhlel had made internet searches for festivities in Nice and had driven the route of the attack two days prior to Bastille Day.

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.