Paris beach festival adds vehicle barriers following Nice truck ramming attack
French parliament urged to unite on emergency rule after terrorist attack
PARIS (Reuters) – Stout vehicle barriers will guard the entrances to the Paris Plages beach festival when it opens on Wednesday, six days after a truck driver killed 85 people when he mowed through a crowd on the French Riviera.
The apparent ease with which Muhammad Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian, was able to steer a 19-ton truck onto a pedestrianized promenade to plow through a Bastille Day crowd in Nice, has focused attention on the potential for similar attacks on summer events around France.
“We met with the police to reassess whether we needed to cancel some of our summer events, but we made the decision not to,” said Matthieu Lamarre, a city government spokesman.
“After what happened in Nice, we are in the process of setting up devices aimed at blocking vehicles entering the site with barriers, other vehicles standing in the way and blocks of concrete,” he said, adding this would come on top of other security measures such as searches and mobile patrols.
An annual event since 2002, Paris Plages creates artificial beaches by closing a major road along the bank of the River Seine and dumping lorryloads of sand along its length.
Since 2007, the festival includes the Bassin de la Villette canal in the northeast of the city. Visitors are invited to relax on deckchairs and take part in beach activities.
Two Tunisian mayors from Tunis and Sousse, where mass shootings took place in 2015, will attend the opening on Wednesday with Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo.
Sousse, like Nice, is a seaside tourist town and the pair have been twinned since 2012. The aim of the visit is to show solidarity in the face of the attacks that have scarred both countries.
It was arranged before the Nice attack, which was claimed by Islamic State. Organisers said they have no plans for any special tribute to Thursday’s dead.
“It’s all about showing terrorism cannot divide us,” said Lamarre.
“Paris Plages needs to be viewed as a breathing space for Parisians and tourists,” he said. “A breathing space that is all the more necessary at the present time.”
France’s government, smarting from accusations that it did not do enough to avert the deadly attack, urged lawmakers on Tuesday to extend a period of emergency rule that gives police greater search-and-arrest powers.
Under fire from opposition politicians and jeered by crowds at a remembrance ceremony on Monday, Prime Minister Manuel Valls wants lawmakers to back a three-month rollover of the emergency regime imposed after a previous lethal attack last November.
Two members of the government, which has urged opponents to show greater political unity in the face of a serious terrorist threat, sounded a conciliatory note ahead of Tuesday evening’s parliamentary debate on the matter.
Justice Minister Jean-Jacques Urvoas left the door open to a six-month rollover of emergency rule in line with demands from right-wing politicians, saying the demand was “not incongruous” given that it would encompass the anniversary of the attacks of last November.
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Valls was ready to take other proposals on board concerning the specific powers emergency rule would comprise to bolster the counter-terrorism efforts of the police and intelligence services.
“This is not just symbolic,” said Le Drian.