Nice attack: authorities had already undertaken dress-rehearsals for a terrorist attack

Nice is a jewel of the French tourist industry, and a symbol of prosperous and fun-loving western life-styles

(Laura Holt)

Nice has been considered a likely target for an Islamist terrorist attack since the multiple assaults in Paris last November.

Several possible scenarios were studied including bacteriological and chemical attacks and a raid from the sea.The possibility of someone deliberately driving a truck into crowds on the city’s celebrated sea-front drive, the Promenade des Anglais, was not one of the possibilities considered.

Nice, population 340,000, is France’s fifth largest city and one of its most prosperous. But it has long been racially and politically tense.

The city is one of the most right-wing in France. Many of its residents are descended from the “pieds noirs” or white Algerians who were forced to leave North Africa after the war of independence in the early 1960s.

The city voted by more than two thirds for the centre-right President Nicolas Sarkozy when he was defeated nationwide in 2012. It also has a large vote for the far-right Front National.

Nice has 60,000 residents with Islamic backgrounds, although only one in four are practising Muslims. It has not previously been regarded as a particular breeding ground for jihadist activity; extremist activity is considered more virulent in the Paris, Lyon and Toulouse areas. Nonetheless, the city was regarded as a potential jihadist target because of its status as a jewel of the French tourist industry, and a symbol of prosperous and fun-loving western life-styles.

As one of the 10 host cities of the Euro 2016 football championship which ended on 10 July, Nice saw several dress-rehearsals of possible terrorist attacks earlier this summer. As early as February meetings between national security officials and local politicians and administrators looked at ways of protecting Nice and the whole of the Cote d’Azur from terrorism.

Considerable police reinforcements were sent to the area as part of the state of emergency declared after the 13 November attacks in the Paris area. A retired Israeli general, Nitzan Nuriel, was commissioned to study possible threats to Nice, Cannes and other towns in the Cote d’Azur. He recommended that special attention should be given to a possible assault by small boats from the Mediterranean.