Even before the terrorist attack in Nice, Thursday in France had been marked by an ambivalent, slightly desperate air. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT / AFP / GETTY

Late on Thursday night, as revellers in the southern French city of Nice were winding down a day of celebrations for La Fête Nationale, or Bastille Day, a large white truck accelerated into crowds of people lingering on the Promenade des Anglais, which runs along Nice’s famous Mediterranean beachfront. The truck barrelled down a two-kilometre stretch before stopping, leaving more than eighty people dead and many others critically wounded. Terror had reappeared in France, yet again.

Even before the attack, Thursday in France had been marked by an ambivalent, slightly desperate air. It has been a year filled with tragedy, and the celebrations felt necessary, even if they could not be wholehearted. Earlier in the night, Christian Estrosi, who was the mayor of Nice until last month, tweeted a photograph of himself on the Promenade des Anglais, watching blue and red fireworks dance over the sea. “I wish you all a happy Fête Nationale!” he proclaimed. An hour later, his Twitter feed began firing out emergency instructions, urging people in the city to stay indoors. Soon, horrifying images and videos began appearing online, showing the injured and the dead. If you knew Nice, you could almost smell the heavy seaside air.

Bastille Day is an obvious choice for someone looking to stage an attack on the French Republic, and French officials have feared and even predicted an attack of the very kind that struck Nice. In May, Patrick Calvar, the director of France’s domestic intelligence agency, testified before the French parliament that the country faced a “mutating” terror threat. “I am convinced that they will begin using rigged vehicles and explosive engines, and in that way they will gain force,” he said, noting that such methods would allow terrorists to carry out attacks and inflict maximum damage while preserving the lives of the attackers, thereby maintaining their ranks.

Furthermore, it was only last Tuesday that a parliamentary committee presented its findings from an investigation into intelligence failures related to the November 13th attacks in Paris, which left a hundred and thirty people dead. Though it didn’t outright fault intelligence services for their performance before and after November 13th, the committee recommended a bureaucratic overhaul that would integrate and streamline the multiple agencies responsible for intelligence collection. The state of emergency that was put into place after the November attacks was still in place last night. That security forces were unable to anticipate or prevent an attack will no doubt raise more questions about their work and abilities.

The driver of the truck was shot dead by law enforcement on Thursday night. As of Friday morning, little was known about his identity, though reports identified him as a thirty-one-year-old French resident of Tunisian origin who was known to police for small misdemeanors.

Around 4 A.M. on Friday, President François Hollande, looking battered and defeated, gave a brief address from the Ministry of the Interior at Place Beauvau, in Paris, where security and other government officials had gathered. He announced, in what is becoming a routine exercise for France, that the country would extend the emergency law enacted in November, which had been set to expire at the end of July, for another three months. He also announced that France’s reserve forces would be called up to assist the military across the country. “Nothing will make us give up our will to fight against terrorism,” he said. “We will reinforce our actions in Syria and in Iraq, and we will continue to strike those who attack us on our own soil, in their refuge.”

The motivations and affiliations, if any, of the attacker are still unclear. But, as the political scientist Olivier Roy has observed, defeating the Islamic State will not make the young men staging attacks in France disappear. So far, these men have either been European by birth or lived in France. In February, the families of victims and survivors of the November 13th attacks met with an investigating commission in the National Assembly. The president of the families’ association, Georges Salines, whose daughter was killed in the Bataclan concert hall, addressed the committee. “I am the last person who would wish to excuse those who killed my daughter,” he said. “But we must understand what is going on here in order to be able to fight against it. It is absolutely essential to explain what is driving these young French people to take up arms against other young French people.” That will continue to be the French government’s challenge in the months to come.





1 / 8 Chevron Chevron PHOTOGRAPH BY VALERY HACHE / AFP / GETTY The site where a truck drove into a crowd on the Promenade des Anglais.

*This post has been updated to remove a reference to explosives in the attack.