There’s been a shocked reaction to last night’s Bastille Day attack in Nice, which at the time of writing has claimed 84 lives with dozens more seriously injured.
At shortly after 11pm local time, a 31-year-old man known to the French security forces drove a truck into a large crowd of revellers. He then started firing a handgun and was shot dead by police approximately 2km from the point where he’d careered off the road. French President Francois Hollande said the country was “under the threat of Islamic terrorism.”
"This lorry just mounted the kerb, across the street from us and the next thing, all you could hear was banging and shouting and screaming," a Northern Irish eye-witness, Paddy Mullan, told the BBC. “I’ve never known such fear. There was a lot of confusion, misdirection, because we didn't know what exactly was happening, why it was happening. There were people coming, running up screaming and coming into the restaurant trying to get away, so we didn't know what it was. We didn't know if it was people on the ground shooting or if there was a bomb, or what was going on, we were just trying to get away."
Our man Stuart Clark heard the terrible news coming out of what had been a joyous Jean-Michel Jarre concert in Nimes’ Roman colloseum.
“Everybody had been laughing and singing coming out of the gig,” he says. “Then, as I was crossing the main square, I heard a scream from a girl who’d obviously just heard the news. There was loud, anxious chatter and then somebody started crying. The singing and laughing stopped and everybody looked stunned. Another tearful girl I’d never met before came up to me and gave me a hug. It was a very eerie experience. Walking around this morning the whole city is dazed."
Interviewing him earlier in the day, Stuart had asked Jean-Michel Jarre about the Paris shootings.
“For the first time in my life I felt we were in a state of war,” he said. “The night of the Bataclan I was in the studio recording with this amazing artist called Christophe. We switched off our phones and were cut off from the outside world. When I came back home at five or six o’clock in the morning, the whole of Paris was silent. There were no lights, just police cars everywhere with no sirens and just side-lights. The mentality in France has changed because of it. We’re all more afraid and suspicious which is, I’m afraid, what these people want.”
There have been numerous messages of sympathy from the artistic community.
“Only now seeing news from Nice, a place where I've had such great times,” Eleanor McEvoy messaged in the small hours. “Horrendous attack. Hard to comprehend. Nous sommes avec vous.”
Banksy posted the image below with the message: “My heart aches. My thoughts are with everyone in Nice and the rest of the world.”
Anyone concerned about loved ones should contact the Irish Embassy at 01 441 76700.

Via @thereaIbanksy > My heart aches..my thoughts are with everyone in Nice and the rest of the world. ?‘???❤️ pic.twitter.com/Ajg6RghzpU

— Neil O'Gorman (@NeilOGorman) July 15, 2016