French security chiefs meet in Paris, Nice boulevard reopens

Speaking after visiting the hospital where victims were treated, he also said that France was “facing a struggle which will be long”.

Roses, candles, teddy bears and notes of grief and sympathy have been placed where the dead lay after they were mowed down by driver Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a Tunisian who had lived in Nice for years.

“He didn’t look anything like the pictures – he’s more attractive in person; I didn’t even recognise that it was him until the police were in the building”, Melissa said.

Carlo Marnini said he had driven from Milan, Italy, to pay his respects to a city he has vacationed in for many years. “We join the rest of the world in mourning and express our solidarity with France against terrorism, against what is fundamentally evil”, he said.

The interior minister pledged to boost the presence of security forces across the country and called on willing “French patriots” to join the country’s operational reservists – now made up of 12,000 volunteers.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Saturday he would call up 12,000 police reserves in addition to more than 120,000 police and soldiers already deployed around the country.

French President Francois Hollande said Friday that reservists would be called upon to boost the ranks of police and gendarmes.

“When the interior minister says there were enough police, it constitutes a blatant lie”, he told i-Tele television. According to her, he was no Jihadist, he drank even in Ramadan, and he wasn’t a religious person.

A neighbour of Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who used to live in a high-rise block of flats on Boulevard Henri Sappia with his family, said he did not believe the 31-year-old was involved with IS. “He never spoke to anyone”, she added.

“It seems he was radicalized very quickly”, Cazeneuve said following a ministerial meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris.

What is known publicly about Bouhlel so far suggests a troubled, angry man with little interest in the group’s ultra-puritanical brand of Islam. He was shot dead by police Thursday night – and witnesses who saw him said he appeared determined to kill as many people as possible.

This particular heritage is remembered in the name of the city’s most famous spot, the Promenade des Anglais – French for “Walkway of the English”.

She said the truck continued through the promenade, which is a pedestrian street, until the driver was killed by police.

In an open letter published on the Nice Matin newspaper’s website, regional council President Christian Estrosi – a member of France’s opposition Republicans – described his country’s current leadership as “incapable”, saying he’d requested that the police presence be reinforced in Nice ahead of the July 14 fireworks display that was attacked but was told there was no need.

Hollande was expected to meet Czech leaders on Wednesday. The stop was part of a trip to five European countries meant to discuss the future of the European Union after Britain voted to leave the bloc.

The man behind the truck attack that killed at least 84 people celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice had recently been radicalised, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said in remarks published on Sunday.

President Barack Obama issued a statement and called it a “horrific terrorist attack” and said the USA had offered assistance in the investigation.

Mr Hollande had proposed lifting the state of emergency on 26 July, but reversed his decision after the Nice attack. Reports say security services did not suspect him of links to terrorist or extremist groups, although he had been known to police for drug and criminal offenses.

IS also claimed responsibility for the November 13 attacks which killed 130 people in Paris, while gunmen in January 2015 attacks on the Charlie Hebdo weekly and a Jewish supermarket were linked to both IS and al-Qaeda.

The office released no additional information about the arrests; it was unclear who was in custody or why.