Fireworks return to Nice promenade after 2016 terror
Fireworks are to return to the Promenade des Anglais in Nice this August, more than two years after the show was stopped by the terrorist attack of July 2016.
Mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, confirmed that there will be an official fireworks display viewable from the famous promenade on August 15.
Yet, rather than placing the fireworks on the beach - closer to the watching crowds, as happened in 2016 - they will be set up a little further away, near the Opéra beach, on the Quai des États-Unis.
The Promenade des Anglais will be accessible to pedestrians, and off-limits for cars, as usual.
Mr Estrosi said: “A security protocol will be defined [shortly] by the authorities.”
He added that the decision to bring the fireworks back was only made after discussions with the various associations representing the victims of the terrorist attack in Nice on July 14, 2016.
The victim associations had already given the go-ahead for a fireworks display in Nice last year, but at that point, had only allowed them from the city’s port, not from near La Promenade itself, and on June 9 rather than July 14.
Discussions are now underway to consider the possibility of holding the traditional July 14 fireworks display again in 2019 - although this is likely to take place on July 13 or 15, rather than on the day of La Fête Nationale itself.
In April this year, a statement from the town hall suggested that the event would indeed go ahead on July 15, 2019.
The terrorist attack of July 2016 saw Nice resident and Tunisian national Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel steal a cargo truck and drive it at high speed into crowds of watching people on the promenade, before being shot himself by police. So-called Islamic State claimed responsibility two days later.
The atrocity killed 86 people and injured 458 others.
