Nice has a large Muslim population which is not confined to 'banlieues', and it's also by far the most right-wing of the large towns and cities in France
France had just started to breathe normally again.
The Euro 2016 football championship had passed off without terrorist attack. President Francois Hollande had announced that the state of emergency, declared after the 13 November attacks in Paris, would lapse at the end of this month. The summer holidays were starting. The economy was beginning to revive.
And now this. The truck attack on Bastille Day on crowds watching fireworks at the Nice seafront has all the fingermarks of devilish timing and planning by Isis.
The attack happened on a day which celebrates the French, and western, values of democracy and fraternity. It targeted families, including children and babies, at a moment of joy and relaxation. It targeted a city which symbolises France as the world’s most popular tourist destination and a beacon of joie de vivre.
There is something doubly and trebly terrifying about the use of a banal 20-tonne delivery truck to deliver 84 brutal, callous and pointless deaths. Guns and explosives the security services can seek to monitor and control. But how can anyone stop a truck from driving into a crowd?
It may well turn out that the perpetrator of Thursday’s outrage was a “lone wolf” – not directly controlled by Isis. That would also be doubly and trebly scary. Isis may not pull all the strings but its strategy and propaganda have implored sympathisers to find their own methods and opportunities to kill the “filthy French and Americans” and other “miscreants”.
The 13 November attacks in Paris were, in a sense, misleading. They needed considerable logistics and planning. The real war now facing the west – not just France – has been openly boasted of by Isis leaders. It involves random and scarcely planned attacks on Europe as the “soft belly” of the West by individuals inspired, but only loosely guided, by the jihadist gospel of hatred and revenge.
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The aim has also been clearly stated: to provoke a white backlash against the Muslim populations of Europe, starting with the 4.7m Muslims in France. This will in turn, Isis believes, recruit many more young Muslims to its cause.
In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in February last year, the Bataclan and other Paris attacks in November and the Brussels attacks in March, this strategy failed. It is to the credit of the vast majority of ordinary French and Belgian citizens that there has been no significant anti-Muslim backlash. It is to the credit of the vast majority of the Muslim populations in Europe that they have rejected the warped logic of Isis.
In pictures: Bastille Day Nice attack
A man reacts near bouquets of flowers near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores and injuring more who were celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday in Nice Reuters A woman arrives with a toy and a bouquet of flowers as people pay tribute near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd in Nice Reuters A woman reacts as she places flowers in front of the memorial set on the 'Promenade des Anglais' where the truck crashed into the crowd during the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice EPA People gather to view the floral tributes near the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP A man reacts near bouquets of flowers as people pay tribute near the scene where a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores and injuring more who were celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday, in Nice Reuters Floral tributes are laid out near the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP A child's toy is placed among the floral tributes laid out near the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP Investigators continue at the scene near the heavy truck that ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores who were celebrating the Bastille Day in Nice Reuters Crime scene investigators work on the 'Promenade des Anglais' after the truck crashed into the crowd during the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice EPA A forensic expert examines dead bodies covered with a blue sheet on the Promenade des Anglais seafront in the French Riviera city of Nice Getty Images A forensic expert evacuates a dead body on the Promenade des Anglais seafront in the French Riviera city of Nice, after a gunman smashed a truck into a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day Getty Images A man reacts as he sits near a French flag along the beachfront the day after a truck ran into a crowd at high speed killing scores celebrating the Bastille Day in Nice Reuters Discarded items are left on the beach, not far from the site of the truck attack in the French resort city of Nice AP Bullet holes in the windscreen of the lorry that was driven into the crowd at high speed Reuters Rescue workers help an injured woman to get in a ambulance AFP/Getty Images Authorities investigate a truck after it plowed through Bastille Day revelers in the French resort city of Nice, France AP Celebrations of Bastille Day were targeted by the lorry driver AP A man walks through debris on the street in Nice, France, the morning after a lorry ran into a crowd, killing at least 84 and injuring 50 Reuters People cross the street with their hands on thier heads as a French soldier secures the area after at least 84 people were killed along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice Reuters A paramedic attends one of the dozens of people injured in the Nice Bastille Day attack Soldiers march on street where the lorry crashed into the crowd REUTERS A man sits next to a body seen on the ground after at least 84 people were killed in Nice, when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday Reuters Bodies are seen on the ground after at least 84 people were killed in Nice, when a truck ran into a crowd celebrating the Bastille Day national holiday Reuters Children were among the 84 killed in the atrocity, with around 50 more hospitalised Reuters French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve (2nd L) speaks to the media in Nice AFP/Getty Images A man walks with his hands up as police officers carry out checks on people in the centre of French Riviera town of Nice AFP/Getty Images With injured people laying in the street police and onlookers react near to a truck in Nice AP Police officers, firefighters and rescue workers are seen at the site of the attack AFP/Getty Images Police officers speak with a soldier after a truck that ploughed into a crowd leaving a fireworks display in the French Riviera town of Nice AFP/Getty Images Police shine a light into the cab as they approach the driver's cab of a truck, in Nice AP But how long can we expect people to react with such forbearance and common sense? The choice of Nice as a target – whether deliberately calculated by Isis or not – is potentially explosive.
Paris and Brussels are cosmopolitan, leftish-leaning, open-minded cities. Nice is by far the most right-wing of the large towns and cities in France, a bastion of the hardest-edged version of Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre right and also of the far right Front National.
A large part of its white population is descended from the “pied noirs” French colonists who were forced out of Algeria in the early 1960s. Nice also has a large Muslim population. They live within the city boundaries, not locked away in the “banlieues” or poor multi-racial suburbs like in Paris or Lyon.
If you wanted to light the fuse of race war in France, Nice would be a clever choice.