Terror on French Riviera

People confort each other as they gather at a makeshift memorial to honor the victims of an attack near the area where a truck mowed through revelers in Nice, southern France. (Photo: AP)

An attacker at the wheel of a 19-tonne white Renault truck ploughed through the crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the French Riviera on Thursday, killing 84 people in what President Francois Hollande called a terrorist act by an enemy determined to strike all nations that share France’s values.

Ten children, teenagers and at least two Americans and one Russian were among those killed. About 202 people were hurt.

After visiting victims at Nice’s Pasteur hospital, a clearly moved Mr Hollande said, “As I speak, 84 people are dead, and around 50 are in a critical condition between life and death. France is filled with sadness by this new tragedy. There’s no denying the terrorist nature of this attack.”

The driver of the truck, identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian resident in France, opened fire before officers shot him dead. A local government official said weapons and grenades were later found inside the truck.

According to video footage and eyewitnesses, at around 10.40 pm local time Thursday, as the fireworks display marking the French national day had just ended, the large white truck drove fast and deliberately at the crowd, zigzagging along the seafront Promenade des Anglais to maximise the carnage.

Video footage shows the truck slowing down and then speeding up through the crowds. The truck also appears to have weaved from the road to the pedestrian-only boulevard.

Witnesses said the truck drove for two kilometres on the promenade where around 30,000 people had gathered.

It careered into families and friends listening to an orchestra or strolling above the beach on the Mediterranean Sea towards the grand, century-old Hotel Negresco.

“People went down like ninepins,” Jacques, who runs Le Queenie restaurant on the seafront, told France Info radio. Some reports said the truck attack lasted 15 minutes.

According to the Telegraph, nobody really paid much attention to the white truck parked close to the Promenade des Anglais. The unmarked truck had, according to reports, been parked on the street for some hours and police had even asked the driver what he was doing there. He told the officers he was delivering ice creams and would be moving on soon.

The truck was chased and finally stopped by the armed police who fired bullets into the lorry’s windscreen. Bouhel exchanged fire with officers using a 7.65 pistol before being shot dead. His French identity card was recovered from the hired truck.

Bystander Franck Sidoli said, “Then the truck stopped, we were just five metres away. A woman was there, she lost her son. Her son was on the ground, bleeding.”

Dawn broke on Friday with pavements smeared with dried blood. Smashed children’s strollers, an uneaten baguette and other debris were strewn about the promenade. Small areas were screened off and what appeared to be bodies covered in blankets were visible through the gaps.

The truck was still where it had come to rest, its windscreen riddled with bullets.

“I saw this enormous white truck go past at top speed,” said Suzy Wargniez, a local woman aged 65 who had watched from a café on the promenade. “It was shooting, shooting.”

The attack came eight months after the Islamist militant shootings and suicide bombings in Paris that killed 130 people.

Just hours before the attack in Nice, Mr Hollande, while marking France’s national day celebrating the birth of the world’s first republic, had announced that he would lift the state of emergency that was put in place after the November killings.