2016 Nice attack

The 2016 Nice attack happened on the evening of 14 July 2016, when a 19 tonne cargo truck was deliberately driven into crowds celebrating Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, France, resulting in the deaths of 86 people and injuring 434. The driver was Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a Tunisian resident of France. The attack ended following an exchange of gunfire, during which Lahouaiej-Bouhlel was shot and killed by police.

The attack is seen within the context of the rise of Islamist terrorism since 2014 motivated by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack, saying Lahouaiej-Bouhlel answered its "calls to target citizens of coalition nations that fight the Islamic State". On 15 July, François Molins, the prosecutor for the Public Ministry, which is overseeing the investigation, said the attack bore the hallmarks of jihadist terrorism.

On 15 July, French President François Hollande called the attack an act of Islamic terrorism, announced an extension of the state of emergency (which had been declared following the November 2015 Paris attacks) for a further three months, and announced an intensification of French airstrikes on ISIL in Syria and Iraq. France later extended the state of emergency until 26 January 2017. The French government declared three days of national mourning starting on 16 July. Thousands of extra police and soldiers were deployed while the government called on citizens to join the reserve forces.