KYIV, Ukraine—At 3:45 a.m. Friday, just hours after a man drove a large truck through a crowd in the French seaside town of Nice, killing at least 84, French President François Hollande made a televised address to the nation.
He began by making it clear the attack at the close of Bastille Day, France’s Independence Day, was an act of Islamist terrorism.
“All of France is under threat from Islamist terrorism,” Hollande said from the Elysée Palace in Paris. “This attack, of which the terrorist nature cannot be denied, is once again of an absolute violence, and it is clear that we must do everything to fight the scourge of terrorism.”
In a separate address Friday afternoon from Nice, Hollande said about 50 other victims were “critically injured between life and death.”
Two Americans, a man and his 11-year-old son from Texas, were among the dead, according to news reports. At least 10 children were killed.
Police shot and killed the driver of the truck more than a mile after he began the carnage.
France’s justice minister, Jean-Jacques Urvoas, and other authorities identified the driver as 31-year-old Mohamed Bouhlel, a French-Tunisian who was a resident of Nice. Urvoas described Bouhlel as having been a petty criminal up until the attack, Associated Press reported.
This was the third major terrorist attack in France in 18 months, and a devastating blow to a country looking to move on from November’s attacks in Paris, in which Islamic State terrorists killed 130 in a coordinated series of bombings and shootings.
Other French officials were quick to join Hollande in declaring France was at war with Islamist terrorism.
Nicolas Sarkozy, a former French president and candidate for president in 2017 said, “We are in a war that will last, with a threat that will constantly renew itself, until it’s completed.”
He added: “Adaptation and the permanent strengthening of our will to fight against Islamist terrorism remains an absolute priority. Nothing can be as it was.”
