French authorities have arrested a 47-year-old man for the attack in Nice.
He is said to have been in contact with the man who killed three people in that southern coastal city, and French media report based on anonymous sources. The forty-something has been arrested so that he can be further questioned.
In Nice, a 21-year-old Tunisian attacked people at a church with a knife on Thursday morning. According to the authorities, the man carried a Quran and shouted: “Allahu Akbar” (God is the greatest).
The police later shot him. The perpetrator is said to have come to Europe via the Italian island of Lampedusa earlier this year.
Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said on the radio that France is engaged in a struggle against the ideology of radical Muslims. According to the minister, “other events such as this terrible attack” must be taken into account.
France has been repeatedly rocked by attacks by Muslim extremists in recent years. Earlier this month, the beheading of teacher Samuel Paty already caused shocked reactions. He had shown cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a lesson.
Residents of Nice have also been targeted before. There, 86 people were killed four years ago when a man hit pedestrians with a truck on the French national holiday.
