PARIS _ Eight months after a murderous rampage in Paris, the deadly attack in the coastal city of Nice on Bastille Day threatens to throw a still-traumatized France into a tailspin in the run-up to presidential elections and raise terror alarms across Europe.
At least 80 people were killed and about 20 critically injured when a truck loaded with arms drove into a late-night crowd on a day of national pride, forcing President Francois Hollande to call up military reserves and extend the state of emergency that he had intended to let lapse.
Authorities declared it an act of terror. "Horror again has struck France," Hollande said in the early hours of Friday.
From the lone wolf attack in Orlando to this latest incident, Europe and the U.S. have been engulfed by waves of violence carried out by Islamic State sympathizers at a time when there is a populist backlash against immigrants and the political establishment, be it bureaucrats in the European Union or lawmakers in Washington.
"This is making Europe so much weaker at a time when Europe doesn't know what it stands for," said Ian Bremmer, head of consulting firm Eurasia Group. "You're going to see more anger at immigration, you have to do more than express your sympathy when the problem is that there is no leadership in dealing with the problems."
The tragedy in Nice was immediately seized upon by presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has made the deportation of illegal immigrants a cornerstone of his campaign: "Another horrific attack, this time in Nice, France," he wrote on Twitter. "Many dead and injured. When will we learn? It is only getting worse."
Across the English Channel in the U.K., where Britons recently voted to leave the EU, the latest attack may do little to quell the frustration at what a majority of voters perceive as unchecked mass migration. France is battling some of the same demons.
In France, Bremmer points out, the anti-immigration and anti-EU National Front performed well on the heels of the Paris assault and may get a bump in the polls come the 2017 presidential election. The attacks in the past months were used by nationalist groups across Europe to step up calls to expel foreigners.
"This attack may nonetheless contribute to France's sense that, with Islamist attacks on the rise and its old ally in the U.K. apparently in retreat, it has to take a more hawkish and assertive line to protect its citizens," said Richard Gowan, New York-based fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Most of the assailants in the prior French attacks, and in the killings in Brussels that left 32 dead in March, were from immigrant descent and from Muslim faith. French media identified the driver in Nice as a 31-year-old Frenchman of Tunisian origin.
The Nice assault is the third major terrorist attack in France since the January 2015 shootings at the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper and a kosher store near Paris. In November, organized teams killed 130 people in Paris, in cafes and at the Bataclan concert hall. Four other attacks of smaller scale in the last 18 months bring the tally close to 240 dead with hundreds injured.
"After Paris in January 2015 and then in November, Nice has been hit," Hollande said. "All of France is under the threat of Islamic terrorism. Our vigilance must be relentless."
While Hollande's response to terrorism has in the past earned him support across the political spectrum and two discernible improvements in popularity, his government's failure to prevent this most recent killing may hurt any ambition to stay in power.
The first round of the presidential election is barely nine months away and Hollande has not declared his intentions on running again. Meanwhile, Marine Le Pen of the National Front has said she will run for office. On the mainstream right, more than a dozen politicians are seeking the nomination of The Republicans, including former prime minister Alain Juppe. Ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy is campaigning though is yet to declare himself a candidate.
The attacks in France and Belgium pose both a security and political challenge to political leaders. Assailants are bringing chaos into the heart of the EU, claiming their acts are to seek revenge for the coalition vow to destroy Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Hollande said that France would step up its bombing of Islamic State targets in Syria and Iraq in reaction to events in Nice.
"The tragic paradox is that the subject of the Nice attack was the people celebrating liberty, equality and fraternity," said European Union President Donald Tusk on Twitter.
