A “terrorist” gunman killed 80 people and wounded scores when he drove a heavy truck at high speed into a crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city of Nice late on Thursday, officials said.
France is filled with sadness by this new tragedy,” said President Francois Hollande.
According to Reuters, Hollande said the lethal attack on the southern city of Nice was clearly a ‘terrorist’ assault and that the state of emergency imposed since a previous attack on Paris last November would be extended for another three months.
Speaking after an emergency meeting in the early hours of Friday morning, Hollande said at least 77 people were killed in an attack in which the assailant drove a big truck at high speed into dense crowds who were watching a fireworks display on the country’s national Bastille Day holiday.
“There’s no denying the terrorist nature of this attack of yet again the most extreme form of violence,” the French leader said in a national television address at 4 a.m. (0200 GMT), about five or six hours after the carnage in Nice.
“We are in a war with terrorists who want to hurt us at all costs,” , Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told journalists hours after an attack that took place when people were watching a fireworks display to mark the country’s Bastille Day national holiday.
Neither he nor other political leaders who spoke publicly in the hours after the attack confirmed media reports that the assailant was a Nice resident of Tunisian origin.
Reuters
