Nice Attack: France Declares Three Days of Mourning
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - France has declared three days of national mourning after at least 84 people were killed in the city of Nice when an attacker drove a lorry into a large crowd celebrating the country's main national holiday.
The driver, who police told news agencies was a 31-year-old Nice resident, was shot dead on Thursday night after ramming the lorry through the festive crowd for two kilometers, sending hundreds of people fleeing in terror and leaving the area strewn with bodies, including many children.
French President Francois Hollande arrived in the city on Friday morning and visited victims at a hospital.
Speaking after an emergency meeting on Friday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said the period of national mourning would begin on Saturday, Al Jazeera reported.
Valls also confirmed that a measure extending the country's state of emergency, which has been in force since the November 13 Paris attacks, would go before parliament next week.
"Times have changed, and France is going to have to live with terrorism, and we must face this together," he said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for what was the third major attack to hit France in the past 18 months.
Hollande said the incident had "all the elements to be called a terrorist attack" and vowed to fight similar threats.
"Nothing will make us yield in our will to fight terrorism," he said in the early hours of Friday.
"We will further strengthen our actions in Iraq and in Syria. We will continue striking those who attack us on our own soil," Hollande added, in reference to France's involvement in a coalition of nations carrying out air strikes against Daesh (ISIL) group.
As condolences poured in from around the world, more details emerged about the attack that began shortly after the end of a firework display for Bastille Day.
Footage showed a scene of horror up and down the promenade, with broken bodies splayed on the asphalt - some piled near one another, others bleeding on to the roadway or twisted into unnatural shapes.
Some people at the promenade had tried to escape into the water, local MP Eric Ciotti said on Friday, giving new details of the horrifying last minutes of the attack.
More than 100 people were injured in the attack and 18 were in a critical condition.
The Paris prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "murder, attempted murder in an organized group linked to a terrorist enterprise". The investigation was being handled by France's intelligence agency and judicial police.
Police also said investigations were under way to find out if the driver acted alone or if he had accomplices at the scene.
