News 84 dead in Bastille Day terror attack (Nice, France)

PressTV-‘They made me alter Nice attack report’
French minister sues police officer over Nice Bastille Day claims
Sandra Bertin, a municipal police officer who was on duty in charge of a CCTV control room, told the Journal du Dimanche that local police reported the lorry at 10.33pm as it began its carnage.

“It was going at 90km/h without lights … It dodged the municipal police barrier. The team couldn’t stop it. You can’t burst the tyres of a 19-tonner with a revolver. Then other municipal police in plainclothes in the crowd were confronted with it,” she said.

“If they’d been armed like our national police colleagues have demanded, they could have stopped it. Finally the lorry came to the national police who shot and neutralised it.”

In the interview published on Sunday, Bertin claimed that the following day the interior minister’s office sent a commissioner from the CSU (Centre for Urban Supervision) who put her on the phone to the ministry.

She claimed she was asked by a “hurried person” to state the positions of municipal police officers in Nice, the barriers in place and the siting of national police officers.

“I told her I would only write what I had seen. Perhaps the national police were there, but I didn’t see them on the cameras,” Bertin said.
 
French state faces lawsuits over failure to thwart terrorist attacks - France 24
Several victims of the July 14 truck attack have said they plan to sue the French state and the municipality of Nice amid criticism of the authorities’ failure to prevent the latest deadly attack on French soil.
French authorities have faced fierce criticism since Tunisia-born Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a 19-tonne truck along Nice’s packed sea-front promenade on Bastille Day, France’s main public holiday, killing 84 people and injuring scores more.

It was the third time in 18 months that an attack linked to jihadist extremism had caused carnage on the streets of France, though investigators are still probing Bouhlel’s actual links to radical Islamism.

While previous attacks were followed by a display of unity from France’s political forces, the bloodshed on the French Riviera has prompted heated wrangling over claims officials failed to provide adequate security on Nice’s famed Promenade des Anglais, where revellers had gathered to watch the traditional firework display on July 14.
(This explains the demand to erase the CCTV tapes)
 
Two more arrested in Nice in connection with Bastille Day attack - France 24
French police arrested two men in connection with the Bastille Day massacre in Nice which left 84 people dead, a source close to the investigation said Tuesday, bringing to seven the number of people detained since the July 14 attack.

"They were placed in custody while investigators seek to determine if the Tunisian (attacker) Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel had logistical support," the source told AFP.

A second source said the two arrested were men and that their pictures had been found on Bouhlel's mobile telephone.

Prosecutors believe Bouhlel had long plotted the attack in which he ploughed a 19-tonne truck into a crowd which had been enjoying a fireworks display on Nice's seafront Promenade des Anglais, injuring more than 300 people.

Four men and a woman have already been charged with being accomplices to murder by a terrorist group. None of them had been known to intelligence services.

Prosecutor François Molins said that correspondence between the suspects and Bouhlel – shot dead by police during the attack – indicated they had been in on the plot.
 
French Interior Ministry accused of meddling with Nice attack report | News | DW.COM | 25.07.2016
French Interior Ministry accused of meddling with Nice attack report

A senior policewoman has accused the French Interior Ministry of pressuring her to change a report on police presence during the Nice attack. Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has denied the charge.

Sandra Bertin, the officer in charge of video surveillance in Nice, claims the minister called her on the phone and "harassed for an hour" over her account of the attack that claimed 84 lives on July 14.

In a weekend interview to the "Journal du Dimanche" newspaper, Bertin said she reported the local police presence during the Bastille Day fireworks. However, she was pressured to put in "that the national police had also been deployed at two points."

"The national police were perhaps there, but I couldn't see them on the video," she told the newspaper.

Minister to sue

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has acknowledged that no national police were protecting the promenade during the last week's attack.

However, he categorically denies talking to the policewoman, "contrary to what Madame Bertin claims."

Cazeneuve also said he would sue over "grave accusations" made by Bertin. He described the claims as "undignified" and said he was committed to uncovering the truth.

Christian Estrosi, the former mayor of Nice, also accused the government of lying over the number of security forces deployed in Nice on the night of the attack.

At the same time, national police chief Jean-Marc Falcone backed Cazeneuve saying "the manipulations attacking the national police, its leaders and its minister must stop."

Deleting CCTV feeds

The interior minister has faced harsh criticism over the events in Nice, the third major attack to hit France in the last 18 months. Some far-right politicians have called for his resignation.

French prosecutors also sparked anger with a demand to delete security camera videos of the attack. While local authorities said it amounted to "destruction of proof," prosecutors claimed it was to stop "shocking" images from leaking out.

(I would think that a record would be made of people ringing from and to the Police in Nice or from the Interior Minister)
 
Mayor of Cannes bans burqinis on resort's beaches
The mayor of Cannes has banned the wearing of burqinis on the beaches of the French Riviera resort famous for its annual film festival.
Thierry Migoule, head of municipal services for the town said: “We are not talking about banning the wearing of religious symbols on the beach ... but ostentatious clothing which refers to an allegiance to terrorist movements which are at war with us,.”
(That'll stop those terrorists!)
 
Dozens injured in stampede sparked by ‘shooting’ scare in France’s Juan-les-Pins – reports
France: 40 injured in stamped after firecrackers spark shooting scare | Veooz
Forty people have been reportedly injured in a stampede in the French Mediterranean resort of Juan-Les-Pins after fears of gunfire led to panic.
Firecrackers triggered scenes of panic in the French resort of Juan-les-Pins on Sunday, as rumors of a fresh shooting sent people running for their lives and diving for cover.
 
"An outfit respecting good morals and secularism" - French police fighting terrorism one ill dressed woman at a time. The Fashion Police are finally here ... :fp:
Woman forced to remove burkini on Nice beach by armed officers
French police made a woman remove her burkini on a Nice beach while another was fined in the resort of Cannes for wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.

The cases have fuelled the debate over the Islamic swimsuit ban, which has been implemented by a number of towns around France in the wake of a wave of terrorist attacks.

The incident in the Riviera city of Nice, which was caught on camera, happened on the shore at the Promenade des Anglais, the scene of last month’s Bastille Day lorry attack.

At least four armed officers confronted the woman, who subsequently removed the garment. One of the officers is then seen either taking notes or issuing an on-the-spot fine.

Along the coast in Cannes, a mother of two told AFP on Tuesday she had been fined on the beach for wearing leggings, a tunic and a headscarf.

Her ticket read that she was not wearing "an outfit respecting good morals and secularism".

"I was sitting on a beach with my family. I was wearing a classic headscarf. I had no intention of swimming," said the 34-year-old who gave only her first name, Siam.

A witness to the scene, Mathilde Cousin, confirmed the incident. "The saddest thing was that people were shouting 'go home', some were applauding the police. Her daughter was crying," she told AFP.
 
Eight more people arrested over Bastille Day terror attack in Nice
Eight men have been arrested after a terror attack in the French city of Nice in July which killed 86 people and injured hundreds more.

French newspaper Le Monde reported the men were arrested late on Monday night in Nice and the nearby towns of Saint-Laurent-du-Var and Cagnes-sur-Mer.

Bouhlel was French-Tunisian, with Le Monde reporting those arrested on Monday are also of French and Tunisian origin.

It is not immediately clear what role police suspect the men played in the attack.

A source told the Agence France-Presse news agency that the arrested men were "associates" of Bouhlel.

Police were also searching properties on Tuesday, the source said.
 
More French Riviera attacks foiled since Nice massacre - France - RFI
Planned attacks on sporting events, schools and religious sites on the French Riviera have been foiled since the killings of 86 people on Nice's seaside promenade in July, the city's prosecutor has said.

"Several cases have been passed on to the anti-terrorism prosecutor in Paris. It was about religious sites, during certain celebrations, sporting events, stadiums, schools," Prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre told France 3 television, according to excerpts from a documentary program published on its website on Tuesday in advance of broadcast.

These cases concern "people who started to articulate things that are rather precise about a type of target or even a specific target", the prosecutor is quoted as saying.
 
Hollande invokes unity at ceremony for Nice attack
President Francois Hollande invoked the spirit of national unity on Saturday as he led tributes to 86 people killed in a jihadist truck attack in Nice on Bastille Day.

Saturday's ceremonies in the Riviera resort city had been postponed until a day after the three-month anniversary because of storms in the region.

"What was attacked on July 14 was national unity," Hollande told hundreds of victims' relatives and officials invited to the ceremony.

"It is the monstrous aim of the terrorists, to attack some in order to terrify others, to unleash violence in order to sow division... Well, I tell you, no, this evil enterprise will fail," he said.
 
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