Interview: Level of terror threats is high: top French envoy

A number of people have been radicalized in recent years and the level of terror threats is high, a top French envoy said here on Friday.

In an exclusive interview with Xinhua at the French General Consulate in Edinburgh, French Consul General Emmanuel Cocher condemned the truck attack in Nice as "horrible" in its impact on a lot of people's lives, terming the act as "atrocity."

As previous attacks in 2015 showed, the level of terror threats is high and "it's impossible to make sure that you prevent 100 percent terror attacks from happening," said Cocher.

"A number of people have been radicalized through travelling to Syria, or following or wanting to be involved in the conflicts in Middle East," he noted.

Cocher referred to the recent Europe Football Championship, which went well in France, as a "quite remarkable" result "to achieve in a country that was affected by the terror attacks on the scale we saw in 2015."

He pointed out that the simple methods of attacks such as the lorry rushed into crowds of people as they were celebrating the French national day in Nice on Thursday is something "very difficult to prevent."

"The root cause is really the situation of the war we are fighting against terrorism, and as I said, the difficulty to prevent them," said Cocher.

While France is fighting the root cause for that, areas dominated by terrorists "are very much disordered," on which all that grows, he alleged.

The top French envoy expressed his doubt that after the terror attacks France, its important allies and partner states will be moving away from addressing the problem, "especially as we see the reality of the threat and its durable massive impacts on our lives."

At least 84 people were killed on Thursday night when a truck smashed into a crowd in Nice during celebrations of the French national day. Around 48 people of the injured were in critical condition, the French authorities said. Enditem