Paris (AFP)

The attack in Nice on Thursday morning, which took place in a context of crisis with Turkey and tensions with the Muslim world, seized the French political world with fear and led the right and the far right to harden their warlike tone.

Prime Minister Jean Castex had to leave the Assembly in a hurry after the announcement around 9:30 am, after having "called on all the national representation to unity and cohesion".

He denounced on his return to the deputies an "attack as cowardly as it is barbaric which plagues the whole country".

Same call for unity from Emmanuel Macron who immediately went there.

He asked not to "give in to the spirit of division" and "terror" in the face of this "Islamist terrorist attack".

"For the first time since the occupation, France is no longer free! Our country is at war, we are at war!": The deputy Les Républicains des Alpes-Maritimes Eric Ciotti did not mince his words anytime soon. known attack, before also going to the scene of the attack.

Several other right-wing officials have engaged, such as Guillaume Peltier, vice-president of the party: "It's war: let us annihilate the enemy, protect our people, save our civilization".

In the Salle des Quatre-Colonnes where the deputies meet the press, the president of the National Rally Marine Le Pen repeated her argument deployed in recent days: "I do not know how many attacks it will take for the government to realize that it We must adopt a war legislation to respond to the war we are waging ".

In the Senate, the boss of the LR group Bruno Retailleau called on the government to "get out of half-measures": "if you stay within the framework, you will continue to make speeches, we will continue to pay tribute and the crimes will continue" , he said to Jean Castex.

This new attack comes amidst national and international tension, two weeks after the assassination of Professor Samuel Paty who had shown caricatures of Muhammad, against the backdrop of the trial of the 2015 attack against Charlie Hebdo, the weekly at the origin of these designs contested in several Muslim countries.

In France, the political class was torn apart after the assassination of Samuel Paty, part of the left being accused of "Islamo-leftism".

The leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who had been particularly targeted, expressed his fear on Thursday morning, as well as his "total solidarity with the Catholics of France": "We are very shaken, for many reasons, the place, the Catholic faith, the accumulation of horrible events which disturb us all and make us wonder about what will be our collective life tomorrow ", he told the press.

Senator EELV Esther Benbassa continued to defend herself against accusations of appeasement: "From 2003, and again in 2015, I fought with others in favor of a dialogue between Jews and Muslims, open, without pretense, and dodging no difficult questions. What were they doing, meanwhile, our conscientious accusers? "

- "Make a block" -

Former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, holding the hypothesis of "two irreconcilable lefts" on the subject, tweeted Thursday: "We are attacked for what we are, France, a democratic country, a free republic, a civilization tolerant ".

The MEP for Public Square Raphaël Glucksmann for his part called to "rise to the level of the tragic times that our nation is going through. Through its teachers and its Catholic believers, all of France is under attack by Islamist fanaticism. Let's defend it. Together. Without hesitation or faltering. "

On the majority side, the general delegate of LREM Stanislas Guerini called on the oppositions to "unite", in a context which is also tense internationally.

Several countries have launched campaigns to boycott French products and protests have taken place in the Muslim world after Emmanuel Macron's defense of the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, which teacher Samuel Paty had shown in class.

The diplomatic escalation between France and Turkey, allies in NATO, was further fueled by the publication of a Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in underwear, beer in hand, lifting up the dress of a veiled woman exclaiming: "Ouuuh! The prophet!".

© 2020 AFP