Update | With 84 dead in Bastille Day nightmare: France wonders if truck driver acted alone
Fear and anger wracks France after another terrorist onslaught; trucker unknown to intelligence services
French authorities were trying to determine on Friday whether a Tunisian who killed at least 84 people by ploughing a truck into Bastille Day crowds had acted alone or with accomplices, but said the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamist militants.
Thursday night’s attack in the Riviera city of Nice plunged France into new grief and fear just eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris. Those attacks, and one in Brussels four months ago, have shocked Western Europe, already anxious over security challenges from mass immigration, open borders and pockets of Islamist radicalism.
The truck zigzagged along the city’s seafront Promenade des Anglais as a fireworks display marking the French national day ended. It careered into families and friends listening to an orchestra or strolling above the Mediterranean beach towards the century-old grand Hotel Negresco.
At least 10 children were among the dead. Of the scores of injured, 25 were on life support, authorities said on Friday.
Witness Franck Sidoli said he had watched people mown down before the truck finally stopped just five metres away from him.
“A woman was there, she lost her son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding,” he told Reuters at the scene.
