A police source said that one of the hostages — an 84-year-old priest —had been killed with a blade in the attack which took place in the Normandy town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, south of Rouen. Police say both hostage-takers were killed.
Evil attacks the weakest, denies truth & love, is defeated through Jesus Christ. Pray for France, for victims, for their communities.
— Justin Welby ن (@JustinWelby) 26 July 2016
Meanwhile, Hollande is facing growing pressure over alleged security failures that led to 84 people being killed in Nice, July 14, when Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed a 19-ton truck into a crown gathered on the city's Promenade des Anglais.
The French president is under pressure to explain a series of security failures in Nice, with a local policewoman alleging that the interior ministry had harassed her into reporting that the national police had been deployed alongside local police in Nice on the night of the lorry attack.
Interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve, however, denied the allegation while Prime Minister Manuel Valls described the scandal as a "political polemic aimed at destabilizing the government." Valls was booed at a memorial service for the victims of the Nice attack.
Intel Failures
There had been criticism that the national police were not actually deployed and that only a small force of local police were protecting the entrance to the pedestrianized zone, allowing the driver to plow straight into the crowd.
The driver of the 19-ton truck plowed into crowds along the promenade in Nice, despite heavy vehicles being banned on public holidays in France and those over 3.5 tons being barred from the promenade all year round.
Cazeneuve initially said "national police were present and very present on the Promenade des Anglais" and that their cars were blocking the entrance to the promenade. However, he later admitted only local police, who are more lightly armed than national police, were guarding the entrance to the area.
According to the Liberation newspaper, only one local police car was stationed at the entrance to the promenade. Cazeneuve has ordered an inquiry into the security at the event and the reasons why the attacker was able to drive to the area several times before being able to mow down scores of people.
The latest attack will pile pressure on Hollande, Valls and Cazeneuve to increase security on the streets of France and promote greater cooperation between its municipal and national police, as well as the security services.
Outside of the police, France has seven different intelligence agencies: the DGSE [General Directorate for External Security] and the DGSI [General Directorate for Internal Security], as well as another five agencies that work in various technical and specialist fields. The separate organizations work in silos, meaning that intelligence on potential attackers is often not passed on.
