Part 1 of the BBC Radio 5 Live coverage from 14th-15th July 2016 covering the Nice Bastille Day attack.
On the evening of 14 July 2016, a 19 tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the death of 86 people and injuring 434. The driver was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian resident of France. The attack ended following an exchange of gunfire, during which Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was shot and killed by police.
Five hours after the attack, French President François Hollande announced an extension of the state of emergency (which had been declared following the November 2015 Paris attacks) for a further three months, announced an intensification of the French military attacks on ISIL in Syria and Iraq, and suggested the attack might have been Islamic terrorism.
Later on 15 July, the French government declared three days of national mourning starting 16 July. On 16 July, thousands of extra police and soldiers were deployed while the government called on citizens to join the reserve forces. Also on 16 July, two agencies linked to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed the attack was inspired by the organisation.
On 21 July, Paris prosecutor François Molins said that Lahouaiej-Bouhlel planned the attack for months and had help from accomplices. By 1 August, six suspects had been taken into custody on charges of "criminal terrorist conspiracy", three of them also for complicity in murder connected to a terrorist organisation.
