https://www.scmp.com/rss/323008/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve says 17 attacks have been thwarted in the country so far this year and he is asking Parliament to extend the state of emergency until July 15. Speaking after an extraordinary cabinet meeting, Cazeneuve said Saturday that Parliament will vote on the bill next week. He said the extension for seven more months is “absolutely necessary” to ensure the highest possible level of protection in the country in the context of next spring’s presidential and general... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2053561/french-government-seeks-extension-state-emergency?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/2053561/french-government-seeks-extension-state-emergency?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 10 Dec 2016 13:51:16 +0000 A new crisis hit France’s government Sunday when a senior policewoman claimed the interior ministry pressured her to alter a report into security at the Nice fireworks display where 84 were killed when a man rammed a lorry into the crowd. The interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve - whose account of police deployments on the night of July 14 celebrations has already faced questions - has been the lightning rod for criticism over alleged security failures. Having resisted calls for his resignation... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1994447/french-policewoman-claims-ministry-pressured-her-change-nice?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1994447/french-policewoman-claims-ministry-pressured-her-change-nice?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 25 Jul 2016 05:15:41 +0000 When a Nice airport worker saw a truck thundering past him on the city’s promenade, crushing pedestrians in its path, he did not join the fleeing crowds but instead gave chase on his scooter. After amateur video footage of a man on a scooter speeding alongside the truck went viral, many thought the heroic figure who tried to stop the July 14 carnage was dead. The man, however, has been found alive and well with only a few minor injuries by Nice Matin newspaper. Named only as Franck, he told the... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1993194/i-hit-him-again-and-again-all-my-force-scooter-rider-who-tried?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1993194/i-hit-him-again-and-again-all-my-force-scooter-rider-who-tried?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Jul 2016 04:44:33 +0000 The truck driver who killed 84 people on a Nice promenade had accomplices and appears to have been plotting his attack for months, the Paris prosecutor said Thursday, citing text messages, more than 1,000 phone calls and video of the attack scene on the phone of one of five people facing terror charges. The Paris prosecutor’s office said five people were handed preliminary terrorism charges Thursday night for their alleged roles in helping 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel in the July 14... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1993108/terror-charges-five-accomplices-nice-truck-attacker-who-plotted?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1993108/terror-charges-five-accomplices-nice-truck-attacker-who-plotted?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 22 Jul 2016 00:59:39 +0000 French Prime Minister Manuel Valls warned Tuesday that the country must be prepared for more deadly attacks and will have to “learn to live with the threat”. His warning came after President Francois Hollande said he was willing to extend France’s state of emergency for another six months following the Bastille Day massacre in Nice in which 84 people were killed. “Even if these words are hard to say, it’s my duty to do so: There will be other attacks and there will be other innocent people... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1992214/pm-valls-says-france-must-learn-live-terrorism-warning-there-will?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1992214/pm-valls-says-france-must-learn-live-terrorism-warning-there-will?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 20 Jul 2016 05:23:26 +0000 Authorities investigating the truck driver who killed 84 people in a Bastille Day attack painted a complex picture Monday of a man who did not seem devout but had recently become interested in jihadi violence and researched past attacks in France and the United States, including one on a gay nightclub in Orlando. Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, who oversees terrorism investigations, said by all accounts Mohamed Lahouaiyej Bouhlel drank, took drugs, ate pork and had an “unbridled sex life”. But... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1991627/truck-attacker-was-pork-eating-drug-user-unbridled-sex-life-taking?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1991627/truck-attacker-was-pork-eating-drug-user-unbridled-sex-life-taking?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 19 Jul 2016 00:45:59 +0000 Last Thursday, a large truck rammed through a crowd of revellers watching Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, France, killing more than 80 people and injuring more than 300, including two Chinese. The perpetrator, shot dead on the spot by police, was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian with French residency. Although Islamic State has claimed responsibility, it does not seem that he operated in connection with the terrorist group. The Nice attack is the latest among a spate of... https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1991243/after-nice-we-all-must-learn-live-certain-amount-terrorism?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/1991243/after-nice-we-all-must-learn-live-certain-amount-terrorism?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Jul 2016 05:11:16 +0000 The French police officers who confronted Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel in Nice pumped around 20 bullets into his truck in the shootout that ended his bloody Bastille Day rampage, it emerged Sunday. In an affidavit, an officer who was among three stationed at the end of the famed Promenade des Anglais described Thursday’s bloody confrontation with Lahouaiej-Bouhlel. The Bastille Day fireworks had just ended and spectators were beginning to drift away when officers - two male, one female - got word... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1991185/police-describe-almost-face-face-shootout-bastille-day-truck?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1991185/police-describe-almost-face-face-shootout-bastille-day-truck?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Jul 2016 02:29:28 +0000 Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the man behind last week’s truck attack in Nice in which 84 people were killed, sent a text message before the attack demanding “more weapons”, French media reported Sunday, citing investigators. The text message, investigators said, was sent to one of the four men arrested in connection with the attack on Saturday. Bouhlel on Thursday drove a delivery truck through crowds of people along Nice’s main promenade as a fireworks display to celebrate Bastille Day was... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1991147/bastille-day-attacker-sent-text-asking-more-weapons-french-reports?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1991147/bastille-day-attacker-sent-text-asking-more-weapons-french-reports?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 18 Jul 2016 00:48:20 +0000 Despite its reputation as a jet set Riviera resort, Nice has become a hotbed of radical Islam in recent years and home to one of France’s main jihadists recruiters, security sources said. Only last month Oumar Diaby gave an interview in Syria to French television where he claimed he was at the head of a “katiba” or cell of some 30 French fighters, mostly from in and around the city. The former petty criminal was a radical imam in Nice before leaving in 2013 to fight with the al-Nusra Front, the... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990545/how-frances-glitzy-riviera-has-become-emerging-hot-spot-jihadis?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990545/how-frances-glitzy-riviera-has-become-emerging-hot-spot-jihadis?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jul 2016 12:04:25 +0000 Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility on Saturday for an attack in which a Tunisian drove a truck through a crowd in Nice, killing 84, prompting hard questions in France over security failures. In a statement via its Amaq news service IS said one of its “soldiers” carried out the attack on Thursday night “in response to calls to target nations of coalition states that are fighting [IS]”. Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, 31, smashed a 19-tonne truck into crowd of people in the Riviera city... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990610/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-truck-attack-nice-pressure?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990610/islamic-state-claims-responsibility-truck-attack-nice-pressure?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jul 2016 09:52:08 +0000 Twitter Inc moved swiftly to remove posts from Islamic extremists glorifying a truck attack in Nice, France, watchdog groups said on Friday, in a rare round of praise for a platform that has often struggled to contain violent propaganda. A spate of violence over the past several months has posed numerous challenges to social media companies. The unfolding military coup in Turkey was marked first by restrictions on social media, internet monitoring groups said, but the crackdown appeared to ease... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990547/twitter-facebook-move-quickly-remove-extremists-posts-celebrating?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990547/twitter-facebook-move-quickly-remove-extremists-posts-celebrating?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jul 2016 06:26:58 +0000 Conservative French politicians have wasted no time blaming the Socialist government for lapses that let a gunman drive a heavy truck into a crowd, pushing security back up the political agenda. With presidential and national elections less than a year away, opposition politicians made little effort to put on shows of national unity seen after other recent attacks. “We can’t cry for victims every six months ... Soon things are going to have to be said, not for the sake of saying them, but for... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990511/french-conservatives-hammer-socialist-government-over-alleged?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990511/french-conservatives-hammer-socialist-government-over-alleged?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jul 2016 03:21:49 +0000 The Tunisian-born driver who killed 84 people after slamming his truck into a crowd of revellers in the French resort of Nice had suffered from depression but had nothing to do with religion, according to his father. “From 2002 to 2004, he had problems that caused a nervous breakdown. He would become angry and he shouted ... he would break anything he saw in front of him,” Mohamed Mondher Lahouaiej-Bouhlel said outside his home in the city of Msaken in eastern Tunisia. He said the family took... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990480/father-nice-attacker-insists-he-had-no-links-religion-had?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990480/father-nice-attacker-insists-he-had-no-links-religion-had?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 16 Jul 2016 02:21:50 +0000 French authorities were trying to determine on Friday whether a Tunisian who killed at least 84 people by ploughing a truck into Bastille Day crowds had acted alone or with accomplices, but said the attack bore the hallmarks of Islamist militants. Thursday night’s attack in the Riviera city of Nice plunged France into new grief and fear just eight months after gunmen killed 130 people in Paris. Those attacks, and one in Brussels four months ago, have shocked Western Europe, already anxious over... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990420/84-dead-bastille-day-nightmare-france-wonders-if-truck-driver?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990420/84-dead-bastille-day-nightmare-france-wonders-if-truck-driver?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jul 2016 19:59:26 +0000 French President Francois Hollande said on Friday that around 50 people were in a critical condition “between life and death” after a lorry ploughed through crowds celebrating Bastille Day in Nice. “As I speak 84 people are dead, and around 50 are in a critical condition between life and death,” he said after visiting a hospital in the French Riviera city. Hollande, flanked by French Prime Minister Manuel Valls, said that “many foreigners” were among those killed or injured. “There are French... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990311/hollande-dozens-people-between-life-and-death-following?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990311/hollande-dozens-people-between-life-and-death-following?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:53:08 +0000 Transforming a vehicle into a simple but deadly weapon of terror – as happened to such bloody effect in Nice on Thursday – is a tactic well known to intelligence agencies. For several years, extremist groups such as Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda have exhorted followers via videos or messages to carry out such attacks using whatever comes to hand. In September 2014, Abu Mohammed al-Adnani, an IS spokesman who Western intelligence agencies have dubbed the group’s “attacks minister”, issued... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1990308/when-vehicles-become-weapons?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/article/1990308/when-vehicles-become-weapons?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jul 2016 13:45:45 +0000 Neighbours of the man suspected to have killed scores of people in a truck attack on the Nice seafront described him Friday as a loner with no visible religious affiliation, as forensic experts searched his flat. AFP reporters interviewed about a dozen neighbours of the man, named by police as 31-year-old Franco-Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, whose identity papers were found in the truck. They portrayed him as a solitary figure who rarely spoke and did not even return greetings when their... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990263/police-nice-identify-driver-truck-attack-neighbours-say-he-was?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990263/police-nice-identify-driver-truck-attack-neighbours-say-he-was?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jul 2016 11:45:15 +0000 Following the attack in Nice that killed at least 84 people, former House speaker Newt Gingrich has called for deporting every American with a Muslim background who believes in Sharia law. “Western civilization is in a war. We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background and if they believe in Sharia they should be deported,” Gingrich told Fox News’ Sean Hannity. ‘It’s a little bit like The Apprentice’: Donald Trump holds final meetings with VP candidates “Sharia is... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/1990259/attack-nice-was-fault-western-elites-who-lack-guts?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/1990259/attack-nice-was-fault-western-elites-who-lack-guts?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jul 2016 11:31:51 +0000 It was a lovely night in Nice, Damien Allemand recalled. Thousands of people thronged the seaside promenade that skirts the edge of the city, faces tilted upward to watch fireworks explode overhead in honour of France’s favourite holiday. Light and music spilled from restaurants, cheers punctuated the bursts of fireworks. Allemand, a reporter for Nice Matin, a local newspaper, was on his way to leave when he heard the crack of gunshots cut through the revelry. A fraction of a second later, a... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990158/i-saw-bodies-flying-bowling-pins-its-path-heard-sounds-howls-i?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990158/i-saw-bodies-flying-bowling-pins-its-path-heard-sounds-howls-i?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jul 2016 07:06:26 +0000 The truck driver who rammed his vehicle into a massive crowd in Nice fired a pistol several times before being shot dead by police in what President Francois Hollande on Friday called a “terrorist” attack on France’s symbolic Bastille Day. At least 80 people were killed when a truck drove into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French seaside resort of Nice, leaving a 2km trail of dead and injured before the driver was slain by police in a hail of gunfire, officials said. World... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990110/bastille-day-horror-terrorist-truck-driver-dies-shootout-police?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990110/bastille-day-horror-terrorist-truck-driver-dies-shootout-police?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 15 Jul 2016 05:15:15 +0000 At least 80 people were killed when a truck drove into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day in the southern French seaside resort of Nice, leaving a 2km trail of dead and injured before the driver was slain by police in a hail of gunfire, officials said. President Francoise Hollande said it “cannot be denied” that the slaughter was of “terrorist nature”. Christian Estrosi, a leading regional politician in the area, said on Twitter: “This is the worst drama in the history of Nice.” French Interior... https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990041/bastille-day-horror-scores-killed-terrorist-truck-driver-ploughs?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/1990041/bastille-day-horror-scores-killed-terrorist-truck-driver-ploughs?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 14 Jul 2016 23:00:30 +0000