Attack on Nice: Five held by French police

Five people believed to be linked to the man who killed 84 people in Nice are in police custody, the Paris prosecutor's office says.

Three arrests were made on Saturday and two on Friday, including the man's estranged wife, Le Monde reported.

Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel drove a lorry into crowds marking Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais on Thursday before he was shot dead by police.

So-called Islamic State claimed one of its followers carried out the attack.

A news agency linked to the group, Amaq Agency, said: "He did the attack in response to calls to target the citizens of the coalition that is fighting the Islamic State."

'Extreme difficulty'

French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel seemed to have been "radicalised very quickly".

He said the "new type of attack... showed the extreme difficulty of the fight against terrorism".

Prosecutors said Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian, drove the lorry 2km (1.2 miles) along the promenade targeting people.

Of the 84 who died, 10 were children. Some 202 people were injured; 52 are critical, of whom 25 are on life support.

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Stephanie Simpson, from the Lenval children's hospital in Nice, said five children remained in critical condition, one was in a "very bad" condition, three were on artificial respiration, one had been stabilised and one eight-year-old child remained unidentified.

French President Francois Hollande met his defence and security chiefs and cabinet ministers on Saturday.

He called for national unity in France and said: "We are in a time when, and we have seen it, there is a temptation to divide the country.

"Faced with these temptations, faced with this risk, we must recall the unity and cohesion of this country."

Mr Hollande, who says the attack was a terrorist act, has already moved to extend a state of emergency by three months, and on Saturday France began three days of national mourning.