LIVE BLOG: Bastille Day attack in Nice

French President Francois Hollande has said that 50 people are in critical condition "between life and death". 

"As I speak 84 people are dead, and around 50 are in a critical condition between life and death," he said after visiting a hospital in Nice. 

A thorough police search of the home of the suspected attacker, carried out by forensics experts, discovered no firearms or explosives, according to French television.

However, computer material has been seized by police and is currently being investigated.

A photographer for French daily Le Monde said that the situation was "tense" and that residents had begun attacking journalists in the north parts of the city. According to the report, residents have been throwing bottles and paint at cameras. He added that other residents had tried to step in and urged for calm. 

A local blood centre in Nice called in extra workers on Friday to deal with the huge numbers of donations.

"We cannot absorb the flow of donors at present," Virginia Lavedrine, a worker at the centre, told Le Figaro.

"We have been overwhelmed," she said.

Local community centres, including the local Islamic cultural association, had put out calls for local residents to give blood urgently to help wounded victims of last night's attack.

An Algerian woman was killed on Thursday night along with her two children in the Nice attack, local media reported on Friday afternoon. 

The identities of all the 84 victims have not yet been confirmed, but it is known that people of at least eight nationalities were killed.

French President Francois Hollande addressed the press on Friday afternoon, warning that the death toll could be set to rise with "50 people in a state of emergency, between life and death".

Some 30,000 people were gathered on the promenade in Nice to watch celebratory fireworks on Thursday night, according to the city's mayor. 

The Promenade des Anglais, the biggest tourist hub in Nice and the scene of Thursday's attack, remained closed "until further notice" on Friday. 

The French Green Party on Friday afternoon denounced plans to extend the current state of emergency for a further three months in the aftermath of the Nice attack.

In a statement, Europe Ecology - The Greens (EELV) expressed their "great sadness" at the attacks, calling for the French slogan of liberty, equality and fraternity to become "a slogan of unity".

However, the party denounced a plan announced by the French government to extend a "state of emergency," which gives police and security forces greater powers.

"When our freedoms are attacked, the answer cannot be to limit them," the statement read.

The victims of the attack in Nice, a cosmopolitan city of some 340,000 people and the second-biggest tourist centre in France, are now known to have come from all over the world.

At least two Moroccans, a father and son from the US, a Russian, a Ukrainian and an Armenian are known to have been among those killed.

An Egyptian man visiting Nice on holiday said he had tried to stop the truck, thinking initially that its erratic driving was an accident.

El-Shafei, a former banker, told NBC news that he had been "frozen" by panic when he realised what was happening.

"Five minutes before this happened, I thought in this peaceful place somebody crazy could do something."

"I'm used to all of these actions in the Middle East but I was never this close to it. I said to my friends, 'Now we can't go to Europe to escape the Middle East. Now the Middle East can happen anywhere."

The first person reportedly mown down by the truck as the driver embarked on his two-kilometre killing spree was Fatima Charrihi, a local mother of seven.

Her son, Hamza, told l’Express magazine: “She wore the veil, followed a moderate Islam. Real Islam. Not that of the terrorists.”

Hamza, 28, believes his mother was the "first victim" because "there were no other bodies in front of it".

Her husband Ahmed had been some 50 metres in front of her, having gone ahead to unlock the car, when the truck began "smashing things to pieces".

"She was with her nieces and nephews. My brother tried to revive her. But she died on the spot told us doctors," said Hamza.

At least 12 Muslim families are known to have lost loved ones in the attack, according to Boubakr Bekri, head of the regional Council for the Muslim Faith.

Bekri said he had been present at festivities in Nice on 14 July, and went immediately to an emergency refuge centre, where he stayed "with a priest and a rabbi until 04:00".

A single Friday sermon will be delivered at all the mosques in Nice "to denounce this despicable act," Bekri said.

The sermon will be delivered in both Arabic and French, and will be followed by a special prayer to remember those who were killed. 

Nice airport was evacuated on Friday afternoon after a suspect package was discovered.

A customs officer at the airport told CBC journalist Thomas Daigle that a bag had been left behind at the airport, and that passengers are not yet being allowed to reenter the building.

Bomb squads in Nice on Friday afternoon investigated a suspect vehicle found close to the apartment of suspected attacker Mohamed Bouhlel.

Forensic units were also called to the scene - images showed them surrounding a rental vehicle on Route de Turin, where Bouhlel had lived for two years.

The rented Volvo people carrier was reportedly parked 100 metres from the apartment, which was searched by police on Friday morning.

A second truck found on the street was later surrounded with red police caution tape and searched by investigators.

Photos have emerged from the search of the apartment where the suspected attacker lived.

A journalist from the French AFP news agency said the apartment had been "combed" by investigators on Friday morning.

Neighbours told AFP that the apartment was searched at around 09:30 local time on Friday morning.

Investigators were still at the location 90 minutes later, with members of the special forensic unit present.

The door of the apartment was smashed in to allow police to enter.

Debates between those mourning the attack in France and those pointing out what they consider to be double standards are still continuing on Tiwtter.

One Emirati writer posted: "There is no one more contemptible than someone who says: Have you forgotten what France did in Algeria? People who suggest this do not mind an innocent child being killed for a crime committed by their grandfather! #Nice_attack"

He then recieved this response from another Arab social media user: "Why does the world treat the killing of innocents in Syria as normal news and when innocent Europeans are killed it becomes the Day of Judgement? The news is published on all news channels"

French media outlets have put out apologies for their coverage of last night's bloody attacks, after complaints that reporters took advantage of bereaved people and published graphic images from the scene.

The France Televisions broadcasting company sent out an official apology on Friday, saying that "brutal images, which were not verified according to the rules" had been broadcast and had provoked "strong reactions".

"An error of judgement occurred due to the extraordinary circumstances," the broadcaster said in a statement.

France 2, a news channel operated by France Televisions, had come in for particularly strong criticism after it broadcast an interview with a man who sat injured on the ground with the body of his recently dead relative next to him covered in a blanket.

Translation: What irreponsible journalist interviews a man who just lost a relative, whose body is still lying on the ground?

The Superior Council of Audiovisual Content (CSA), the regulatory body for French media, has said it is investigating last night's coverage.

The CSA in a statement called on television and radio outlets to "exercise caution and restraint, and protect human dignity".

Neighbours of the man suspected of killing 84 people in Nice on Thursday have described him as a "silent" and "lonely" man.

Police sources have named Mohammed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old man born in Tunisia and resident in Nice, as the attacker who was shot dead by police after ploughing his truck through crowds of revellers for two kilometres.

Reporters from the French state news agency interviewed a dozen people who lived around his apartment, which was searched by police on Friday morning after identity papers found in the cab of the truck gave his name.

His next-door neighbour said they had spoken only once, while a second said she had seen Bouhlel - who in March was convicted of an offence relating to domestic violence - "staring" at her daughters.

The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported the Kingdom's condemnation of the attack on Twitter:

Translation: Text: "#The_Kingdom_condmens_the_running_over_terror_attack_in_Nice France #SPA", Picture: “Urgent”

Translation: "And the source confirmed that the Kingdom will stand in solidarity with the friend the French Republic and coordination with it to combat terrorist acts in all its types and forms. #SPA"

One of Saudi Arabia's most prominent clerics, Salman al-Odah, also condemned the attack on Twitter:

Translation: "#Nice_attack, #Nice_running_over_attack, May God, the angels, and all people condemn the killer, here and in all places.. Killing with no right is a crime carried out only by those who hate life and human beings"