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.
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