A British couple, Paul and Rebecca Gordon from the Midlands, are on holiday in Nice with their 18-month-old daughter. 

They had walked along the promenade back to their hotel just moments before the attack took place.

Mr Gordon said: "Because we were on the fourth floor I could see pretty much the whole event unravelling and I just turned to my left and I just saw the whole road was covered in people and he just accelerated at a faster speed than he had approached the hotel and he hit everyone. I saw the truck bounce... and I saw people knocked like skittles."

Why France? It's a question that's been asked repeatedly over the past 18 months. And there is no single answer.

France has a long history of jihadist violence, going back to an attack on the Paris metro by Algerian militants in 1995.

In recent years, almost 1,000 young French Muslims have traveled to Iraq and Syria to fight for the so-called Islamic State - the largest single European contingent. Some have returned to commit acts of violence at home. Others have chosen a more lonely path, answering the calls of militant preachers and so-called Islamic State leaders to commit individual, random acts of violence on the streets of France.

That there appears to have been no shortage of willing recruits says something about France's inability to integrate huge numbers of immigrants from North Africa since the 1970s. Many have ended up living in deprived suburbs where crime and alienation flourish. For the more socially conservative, France's sometimes strident secularism has been another source of friction.

And when the violence comes, what of the response? Much has been said, in the past year, about the failure of governments to monitor and control the movement of terror suspects within Europe's passport-free Schengen area. 

With each attack, in France or Belgium, come urgent calls to sort the situation out. 

President Barack Obama on Friday ordered flags at the White House and other US government buildings to be flown at half mast to honour victims of the attack in Nice.

Meanwhile, French news agency AFP is reporting that President Hollande has had telephone conversations with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the UK's new Prime Minister Theresa May and President Obama.

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Like many, former French Socialist MP Corinne Narassigin has been trying to answer why France has been targeted in recent attacks. 

She said the country's history of colonisation had led to its "complicated" relationship with Islam.

But France was not the only country threatened by such attacks, she added. 

Image source, Getty Images

Chairman of the UK's Intelligence and Security Committee Dominic Grieve has said that terrorist violence in Europe could "continue for some time" and that "100% protection cannot be guaranteed anywhere". 

Speaking on the BBC News Channel, Mr Grieve said this was a "values battle" that would eventually be won, but until then "we have to accept that violence has come on to the continent and will be around for some time". 

"All governments can do is strike collectively to tackle underlying causes and provide protection for citizens. Governments across Europe are doing that - but that doesn't mean that improvements can't be made," he said. 

Mr Grieve said that conditions in the Middle East were fueling the violence across Europe, adding that we needed to build "cohesive communities" to stop attacks. 

The attacker named as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel of Tunisian origin has been positively identified by a neighbour, the BBC understands.

This picture has been circulated by several news organisations, featuring Bouhlel.

It first surfaced online via news outlet, @News_Executive, external.

Image source, @News_Executive

Francois Molins said no group had admitted carrying out the attack but that it bore the hallmarks of jihadist terrorism.

European Union foreign ministers will discuss the fight against terrorism at talks in Brussels on Monday, following a request from France.

This country – whatever the outside world thinks about it – has been suffering a real identity crisis for several years now;  and the series of deeply shocking extremist attacks, from the Bataclan night club last November to the murder of individual police officers in their own homes and now the massacre in Nice, has once more brought to the surface the atmosphere of insecurity and doubt which has been afflicting the French.  

The habitual self-criticism which followed the Paris attacks is flaring up again. 

The country’s security systems are under renewed scrutiny, and are being blamed for what has happened.  

Just recently a report revealed that the various branches of national security weren’t speaking to one another enough about the extremist threat.  

The rivalries which exist in every national bureaucracy are stronger in France than elsewhere.  

This, combined with the political malaise which has dogged President Francois Hollande’s government – his approval rating down to 14%, according to reports – have persuaded many French people that their country simply isn’t as good at coping with this kind of emergency as other big countries are: the United States and Britain in particular.  

There’s been a long, if subconscious, feeling here that France has been punching well above its weight in the world. The Nice attack is precisely the kind of thing which confirms that belief.  

French prosecutor Francois Molins revealed the following:

• The attacker Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel was born on 3 January 1985 in Tunisia, with domicile in Nice
• He worked a chauffeur and delivery man
• He was married and had children.
• His ex-wife has been detained by police
• Bouhlel was known by the police and legal system because of threats, violence and petty theft between 2010 and 2016
• He had been convicted on 24 March 2016, and given a six-month suspended sentence on charges of violence with a weapon - a wooden pallet used against another driver after a traffic incident
• Secret services are not aware that he had ever shown any sign of radicalisation
• Digital material which has been seized is being investigated, as well as the mobile phone found in the lorry

"The UK stands shoulder to shoulder with France following this appalling and cowardly attack," said newly-appointed UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. 

"No country is immune to terrorism and we are united with our French and European partners as we deal with these threats to our countries and our way of life. 

"British Embassy staff are on the ground in Nice and in close touch with French authorities." 

French prosecutor Francois Molins has also confirmed other details:

• He said the lorry was rented on 11 July, and was due back on the 13th
• Inside the cabin, there was one automatic pistol, as well as two replica assault rifles in addition to another fake pistol.
• A mobile phone, a driver's licence and bank details were also found
• The lorry was a 19-tonne vehicle

Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel has been confirmed as the driver of the lorry involved in the Nice attack by the french prosecutor Francois Molins.

France prosecutor Francois Molins has spoken to the press. He said: "We deplore the death of 84 people.

"202 were injured including 52 who are now in critical care - with 25 of those in intensive care.

"I would also like to pay tribute to all state services who were mobilised following this attack."