Can a city truly recover from an atrocity, or does it only learn to carry it? A reflection on a difficult decade.
“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” Albert Camus wrote those words about the same Mediterranean light that still falls on Nice’s Promenade des Anglais, where on 14 July 2016, a truck tore through a crowd celebrating the national holiday. Eighty-six people from 19 nations were killed, over 450 suffered injuries. Numbers that make the heart skip a beat.
Elsewhere in France, 14 July is marked with great pomp: fireworks, military parades and flyovers. Here, it falls quiet. In Nice, the mood has been conspicuously subdued on Bastille Day for the past decade, and this year, the tenth anniversary, the hush over the Baie des Anges will run deeper still. Residents have their own way of putting it, repeated so often it has become local shorthand: Tout a changé, rien n’a changé – everything has changed, and nothing has changed.
Two Lives Above and Beneath the Surface
Outwardly, the Promenade des Anglais looks much the same as it always has. The dome of the Negresco hotel still gleams in sugary pink. Castle Hill is still standing guard over the port, fierce and unshakeable. And the seafront looks much as it always did: bright, open, and peaceful – a place where residents and visitors meet the sea, the light, and one another.
Photo © RIVIERA BUZZ
Beneath that serene surface, though, the city’s most familiar public spaces carry a second life, shaped by memory, vigilance, and a silent resignation to the motto, “The show must go on”. For all its beauty, art, and culture, Nice is also a ritzy tourist destination that has to perform, and life still spills into the street, onto terraces, along the Promenade, into the daily rituals that give the Riviera its ease.
But after 14 July 2016, “ease” became a more complicated word. The attack altered the rhythm of the city without erasing it. A summer crowd, the sound of a celebration nearby, a delivery van idling too close to a pedestrian stretch: each can still carry an undertow of unease, even now, a decade on. For some residents, that change stays mostly invisible from the outside; for those who were there, or who loved and lost someone who was, it remains close to the surface, and it is not really “change” so much as lingering trauma.
The Inner Weather
What changed most is the city’s inner weather. Thousands were on the Prom’ that night to celebrate the national holiday, or knew someone who was, and never came home. Ever since, many Niçois have carried a double awareness through ordinary days, the routine and the unresolved, side by side. They go to work, take children to school, meet friends for coffee, complain about traffic, swim, shop, and plan holidays. But they also remember, and the remembering surfaces at unpredictable moments, triggered by ordinary details rather than solemn ones: a newspaper photograph, a siren, a fireworks display elsewhere in the city during the summer season.
To respect people’s emotional scars, “Quatorze Juillet” itself has stayed deliberately quiet since the attack. The fireworks that in the past used to mark the occasion are now postponed to the next day – a small civic acknowledgement that the date carries weight the rest of the calendar does not.
Continuity, Not Innocence
Photo © RIVIERA BUZZ
Throughout their history, the Niçois have proven their resilience time and again, refusing to let fear define the city’s identity but instead standing up to Ottoman troops, foreign princes who tossed Nice or Nizza around like a pawn, and of course, in the last century, to German Nazi occupation. For the people here, it always means, “first, dealing with it, and then not forgetting what happened; simply learning to live with it”.
This shows in the way Niçois speak about their home with a mixture of attachment and reserve. Many insist on continuity, “Nice is still Nice”, though the phrase carries its own qualification: continuity here reads as endurance rather than innocence. The decision to keep using public spaces that were violated, to keep building a life in a place where collective memory sits close beneath the summer light.
Visible Signs of Recovery
The outwardly visible markers of healing and recovery are real. The blood-stained bitumen of the Prom’ was the first thing to be replaced, and security bollards were installed as soon as the last debris was cleared. Two permanent memorials have been erected: the L’Ange de la baie monument was installed on the Promenade in July 2022 near the point where the truck came to a stop, and a heart-shaped plaque in the garden of Musée Masséna carries the names of all eighty-six victims. Associations representing survivors and bereaved families, among them Life for Nice and Promenade des Anges, continue their work of remembrance and support, their legal proceedings largely settled.
Photo © Marcus Gualberto
Economically, the recovery reads as complete. The airport carried just over fifteen million passengers in 2025, a record figure, and hotel occupancy along the coast reached its best level in more than a decade. Tourists party again where ten years ago people died, on the pavement and the beaches of the Prom’. That recovery runs on a separate track from the slower, quieter one still under way beneath it, the two rarely intersecting in daily conversation.
What Lies Beneath
A harder thread runs beneath the civic and economic story. Longtime residents describe a wariness between ideologies that a decade of jihadist terrorist attacks across France has done little to soften. The Bastille Day attack was already the second in Nice, after a knife attack on military patrol personnel in February 2015, in the wake of Charlie Hebdo, and the conflict sharpened further in October 2020, when a third attack, at the Basilique Notre-Dame (pictured below), was again carried out in the name of ideology.
Photo © RIVIERA BUZZ
Separately, conservative religious practice within Nice’s Muslim community has become more visible across the city in recent years, a trend distinct from, but often discussed alongside, a harder security debate: proposals to close mosques accused of promoting radicalisation have become a near-daily talking point on the city council agenda.
This tension rarely surfaces in outside coverage of the city – tourisme oblige ! – and residents who have lived through all three dates speak of it as part of the ordinary fabric of life here, felt rather than openly discussed. To date, the most visible reaction from the Niçois population has been the recent election of law-and-order mayor Eric Ciotti, who has quickly taken steps to put more police on the ground.
A Colder City
Some elements of the city’s cultural life that once seemed to belong to Nice’s Mediterranean ease have also been caught up in stricter security rules. Street performers can no longer simply appear where the mood takes them; Steve the piano man now has set hours and designated spots, and even a return visit by the world-famous Canadian sidewalk artist Victor Fraser, who came to Nice after the attack to leave three murals on the pavement, was blocked when the city refused authorisation. Spontaneous music in the street has become harder, sometimes impossible. For all its heat and glamour, the city can feel colder now, and poorer.
The locals who chose to stay – some born here, some who arrived later, some who made Nice their home long before the anniversary returned the attack to the foreground – have accepted living with the knowledge that the same event could erupt at any moment, anywhere in town. Things may become even clearer when speaking to people who in some way were affected, directly or indirectly. We had the opportunity to speak to two of them – both Americans, one a longtime resident, and the other a visitor at the precise moment the attack unfolded.
The Long View: Peter Jeremy Harder
Peter Jeremy Harder is a translator and language teacher from Connecticut who has lived in Nice for fifty years. He is what the French consider an “expat”: an educated, well-adjusted resident from a friendly Western culture – as opposed to an “immigrant”, a profile which is usually in a different socio-economic bracket, and a difference the French are quick to point out. From his position as an insider with a wider lens, Peter has a particularly clear picture of how the city has changed.
Peter Jeremy Harder (courtesy of)
Peter, what was your personal experience on that and the following days?
I was not there myself that night. I woke up to the news the next morning, and my first thought was of my 14-year-old granddaughter Emma, her mother Vanessa, and her grandmother, who I knew had been among the people watching the fireworks. Vanessa saw the truck barrelling down the street and was hit on the arm by the outside mirror before she pushed her mother and her daughter aside. Luckily, they were not hurt. They ran for shelter in the direction of the Old Town, like so many others did.
How did the family cope afterwards?
Not very openly. They didn’t get a lot of support, but they kept on keeping on. It is rarely mentioned at home. Whether or not you were there, everyone was forced to deal with it in some way. For a while, it felt like people were going to one funeral after another. That was also the moment when tensions between Christians and Muslims in the city became more pronounced, even if most people still tried hard not to lump moderate and radical Muslims together.
Did you personally notice any hostility or new division in the years that followed?
Not firsthand. But the subject of immigration became much more politicised. France has always had a latent xenophobia in some circles, and the Niçois have always been suspicious of strangers. You have to understand what makes them tick. They are modest, deeply religious, and “identitaires” – proud of their identity. They are also very private people, so they do not talk much about this kind of event. If anything, they have become more unified since then.
Something that has also become more noticeable since then is that France in general has turned more Catholic after the terror attack. So, the reaction plays out less in terms of nationality or origin than in terms of religion. Today, even Nice-born-and-raised Muslims often identify as Niçois first before bringing up their faith.
What has, or has not, noticeably changed in the city over the past decade?
There is the increased police presence in the street. For a long time after the attack, military and paramilitary personnel, armed to the teeth, patrolled the Promenade and other potential target sites, as if to reassure people that the city was safe again. I don’t think it really conveyed a convincing sense of security.
What has not changed is the stream of tourists. Most of them don’t seem to know or remember what happened, and they are not interested in it. That is partly because Nice was marketed like Disneyland during [the former mayor] Estrosi’s years. It is true that the city is probably safer than any American city, but it is still a shame.
How would you sum up what the anniversary means now?
The anniversary matters, but it is also mainly for politicians. The people themselves just move on with business. A lot of people have moved away from the city into the hinterland. I myself spend more and more time in the mountains now. For many of us, it was the end of a certain naïve innocence.
Photo © Marcus Gualberto
Not a Closing Point
The ten-year mark is not, and cannot be, a closing point. The physical injuries may have healed, and anyone who sustained psychological trauma has dealt with it the best way they can. The fireworks will stay dark again, speeches will be made, wreaths will be laid. When, on 14 July 2026, President Macron steps onto a podium on the Promenade des Anglais – marking the first time since 2016 that he has spent Bastille Day in Nice – his remarks, however carefully crafted, can only honour the dead and serve as a reminder of what the city has absorbed into normal life.
But there is one ally that has stepped in where therapists and administrators arrived at their limits: art. It feels like the horror unleashed a wave of creativity that had lain half dormant. The number of paintings, sculptures, songs, or theatre plays created over the past decade, all dealing with the attack in their own way, is staggering. And interestingly enough, virtually all of them deal with the tragedy as the baseline to convey messages of hope, forgiveness, tolerance, and peace.
Art also serves as a reminder that the attack was not something abstract that happened to other people, but that anyone could have been affected – the landmark theatre play Prom_14 which recently premiered at Théâtre de la Semeuse was written by the father of a 12-year-old girl who lost her life that night.
The Healing Power of Art: Maciej Czarnecki
One of those who has since turned to the arts to process what happened is Maciej Czarnecki. He was visiting from Boston as a tourist and enrolled in a French language class. Along with some of his classmates he was on the Prom’ that night and escaped the truck by seconds – a matter of sheer coincidence and luck. His perspective ten years on adds another layer to the human impact of what he witnessed.
Maciej Czarnecki (courtesy of)
Maciej, do the images and memories still haunt you? How do you cope?
I still remember the sounds – banging, screams. I remember the images from three days later, when I finally mustered the mental strength to go back – the red stains of blood on the brown surface of the Promenade, their contrast with the chalk outlines of the victims, their pictures, the fresh flowers, posters of missing victims plastered all over the city. I still tear up thinking about it, even now when I’m saying these words…
But rather than allowing these events driven by senseless hate to consume me, I’ve channelled them into creativity – the song and music video about that night, the screenplay whose aim is to fight the politics of hate that contributed to that night. That’s my form of self-administered therapy.
Does it sometimes still come up with your former fellow students from your language class?
Surprisingly, we have talked very little about that night, both then and over the years. People have different ways of dealing with trauma. Some want to forget, to distance themselves emotionally from events that are traumatic and incomprehensible. It’s an effective self-preservation mechanism.
What have you personally changed in your life as a result of that event?
At the risk of sounding clichéd, it did make me reevaluate my life and its direction. Small random decisions and seconds of time saved me from the path of that truck. I was given a second lease on life and decided not to waste it. I am more present in the relationships with my loved ones. I am no longer defined by my corporate job – I now let the creative spirit trapped inside of me spread his wings.
After writing the song 84 Flowers and a film screenplay inspired by the events of that day, I have written two more screenplays and made a physical art cycle related to the last one. Being close to all that death and destruction pushed me to be more alive and creative.
The USA is tragically used to violent events. Is there an awareness about this attack? Has Nice become something of an American tourist destination because of it, or has it been forgotten in the US?
Every country has its own traumas that define its history and mythology. The US has its 9/11 that defines its trauma of terrorism. I feel that the news cycle in the US moved on very quickly from that night on the Prom’ and most of the US population processes world events through the American perspective. I stopped bringing up the Prom’ attack during conversations because it used to elicit little interest.
Photo © Natja Igney
Nice has been a tourist destination for Americans despite the attack. The city of Nice has skillfully erased most traces of the trauma to restore the image of a Mediterranean paradise for tourists. I do understand the commercial reasoning behind it – so much of Nice’s economy depends on tourism and you don’t want that image to be stained by the memory of a terrorist attack.
You process some of the trauma through art, like your song 84 Flowers, released shortly afterwards, and the screenplays you are working on. How do people react when you revisit the topic after all those years?
I no longer bring it up in conversations. There is little collective memory about the Nice attack here in the US; most people only vaguely remember it. I also came to realize that for people who have never had the first-hand physical experience of such a traumatic event, it is difficult to understand it or sympathize with someone who has. Other than offering superficial words of sympathy, people genuinely don’t know what to say because they can’t relate to it, or to a guy who tears up when talking about body outlines drawn in chalk next to stains of blood. I also stopped talking about it because I did not want to be defined as “the guy who witnessed a terrorist attack”.
But I still hope that the screenplay I have written about that night will help people remember and put that night in the right context. I hope that they see that the hate that fuelled the truck on the Promenade that night is the same hate that keeps fuelling the politics of today.
Living With Duality
Courtesy Ville de Nice
For the people who live here, the famous golden light now falls across a more layered landscape. The Promenade still serves as a place of passage, but also of remembrance; the summer still belongs to carefree living, but now also to commemorations. Eighty-six names are engraved in the Heart monument in the garden of Musée Masséna, and hundreds of families and friends still carry an emotional pain beyond imagination … but life carries on. It does not mean that Nice has moved past what happened. It only means that the city has stopped expecting to.
PHOTO CREDITS
- Lead image courtesy and © Marcus Gualberto
- All other photos and images as credited
Advertisement
Leave a comment