Bastille Day truck attack divides France

Jeers and calls for France’s political leaders to resign have overshadowed a minute’s silence in the southern coastal city of Nice as Prime Minister Manuel Valls and others paid tribute to the victims of the Bastille Day truck attack.

There were more boos as tributes were laid. Some in the crowd claim the government is not doing enough to protect French citizens, after this latest massacre which killed

84 people last Thursday on the Promenade des Anglais. ISIL said it was responsible.

National unity followed the Charlie Hebdo and Paris attacks but the Nice bloodshed has triggered tensions – especially among political rivals ahead of next year’s presidential election.

In Paris, President Francois Hollande and his Interior Minister Bernard Caze-neuve marked the silence, observed throughout France on the third and final day of mourning declared after the killings.

Public faith in the ability of Hollande’s Socialist government to combat terrorism has plummeted in the wake of the truck attack, a new opinion poll suggests.

Just 33 percent of those questioned for the poll, published in Le Figaro newspaper, are confident that the current leadership can meet the challenge.