Paris, France: French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve on Friday said he could not confirm that the Nice truck attacker was motivated by religious extremism.
Asked on TF1 television if he was in a position to draw a link between radical Islam and the carnage that left 84 dead, the minister responded: "No."
A truck loaded with weapons and hand grenades drove onto a sidewalk for more than a mile, ploughing through Bastille Day revelers who'd gathered to watch fireworks in the French resort city of Nice late Thursday. At least 84 people were killed before police killed the driver, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear who would have been behind an attack, but France has recently seen a spate of dramatic assaults by jihadist groups, including the Islamic State group which straddles Iraq and Syria.
President Francois Hollande said in a televised statement that all of France was under an "Islamist terrorist threat" and extended by three months a state of emergency that has been in place since the November attacks that killed 130 in Paris was to end July 26.
