French President Francois Hollande says "the terrorist character" of the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice cannot be denied.
At least 80 people were killed when a 31-year-old French-Tunisian citizen drove a truck at high speed into a large crowd watching Bastille Day fireworks in the French Riviera city Thursday night.
According to reports the truck barrelled through the crowd for at least two kilometres sending people flying in all directions before the driver was shot dead.
French police said they found "guns and larger weapons" inside the truck.
Hollande has meanwhile extended the state of emergency for another three months following the attack.
The French parliament will still have to approve that decision and Hollande said that other measures would be put in place to counter the threat of terrorism.
The president of the region that includes Nice has announced that the city’s jazz festival, due to open on Saturday, and a Rihanna concert planned for Friday evening, have both been cancelled after the deadly truck attack.
Christian Estrosi said flags would be lowered across the city on Friday. He gave the latest death toll as 77 after a truck ploughed into people celebrating Bastille Day at a fireworks display on the city’s famous Promenade des Anglais.
European Council president Donald Tusk said it was a "tragic paradox" that the victims of the attack in Nice were celebrating "liberty, equality and fraternity" — France’s motto — on the country’s national day.
U.S. President Barack Obama has condemned what he says "appears to be a horrific terrorist attack" in Nice.
Obama said: "Our thoughts and prayers are with the families and other loved-ones of those killed."
Noting that the attack occurred on Bastille Day, Obama praised "the extraordinary resilience and democratic values that have made France an inspiration to the entire world."
Obama is offering French officials "any assistance that they may need to investigate this attack and bring those responsible to justice."
France’s ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, characterized the events in Nice as a "terrorist attack."
"Our democracies — France, the United States, our other partners, we are besieged, we face a terrible threat," Araud said at a Bastille Day reception at the French Embassy in Washington late Thursday.
