‘Horror, once again’: French press reacts to Nice terror attack

Once again, France is waking up to a massacre on its streets. In Nice, as people gathered on the seafront promenade to celebrate their national holiday, Bastille Day, a terrorist drove a 25-ton lorry at high speed through the jubilant crowd, leaving at least 84 dead. ‘Once more horror has struck France’, said President Hollande, linking the killings to Islamist terrorism. Last night’s incident is the third major terrorist attack in France since the Charlie Hebdo assault in January 2015. As a result, the French press reacted with a sense of familiarity. Here’s what they said:

Le Figaro:

‘Horror, once again’, reads the front page of Le Figaro. The newspaper reports on how several police officials and one heroic passer-by desperately attempted to neutralise the driver as he mounted the pavement and ploughed for around 1.7km through the crowd. The frantic bid to end the carnage left the lorry with at least 50 bullet holes, the newspaper adds. Nice’s residents and tourists struggled to sleep, the paper says, describing the early morning atmosphere as ‘groggy’.

Le Parisien:

Le Parisien carries a similar headline; ‘Horror in Nice’. The Paris daily reports on François Hollande’s declaration of three days of national mourning in the wake of the attack in which at least two children died. The newspaper carries the words of a tourist who sought shelter in a casino during the attack. ‘The truck drove over their bodies as if they were skittles. I saw a boy on the ground. He must have been five-years-old, the age of my son’, the 27-year-old recalls in tears.

Le Monde:

France’s most popular newspaper reports on the extension of the national state of emergency which has been in place since the November 2015 attacks. The measure had been due to be lifted on 26th July, however, will now be in place for a further three months. The newspaper also publishes the international reaction to the massacre. President Obama branded the incident a ‘horrible terrorist attack’, while Theresa May said she is ‘very shocked and worried’ and the German President described it as an ‘attack against the entire free world’.

Nice-Matin:

The regional Nice newspaper says the driver of the lorry has been identified as 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a French-Tunisian whose apartment in the north of Nice was this morning searched by police. The newspaper has spoken to the man’s neighbours who describe him as ‘lonely’ and ‘silent’.

Sud-Ouest:

Discovered along with his identity card, Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was a married father of three who worked as a professional delivery driver, according to the French daily, Sud-Ouest. Although known to the police for petty crime, he was not suspected to have been radicalised, the newspaper reports.