After more than 80 people were killed in Nice, France, on July 14, the city is mourning its dead. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack. WSJ's Niki Blasina reports from Nice. Photo: Niki Blasina

The police vans were in place to protect a military parade earlier in the day but were removed before Thursday’s attack, eyewitnesses say according to the UK’s Telegraph.

Five people have been arrested after Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, 31, slammed his vehicle into a throng of Bastille Day fireworks spectators on Nice’s seaside boulevard.

Overnight Bouhlel’s family revealed he had sent $150,000 just days before the atrocity.

“Mohamed sent the family 240,000 Tunisian Dinars ($150,000) in the last few days,” his brother Jaber Bouhlel told the Daily Mail.

“He used to send us small sums of money regularly like most Tunisians working abroad. But then he sent us all that money, it was fortune.

“He sent the money illegally. He gave cash to people he knew who were returning to our village and asked them to give it to the family.”

Echoing his father’s thoughts that Bouhel was “volatile” and “depressed”, Jaber said his brother was not a terrorist, but mentally ill.

It comes as the French government comes under fire after the country endured its third major terror attack within 18 months.

Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader of the National Front party, called on Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve to step down.

“In any other country in the world, a minister with a toll as horrendous as Bernard Cazeneuve — 250 dead in 18 months — would have quit,” she said.

For the latest developments follow our live blog below: