More attacks foiled on French Riviera since Nice carnage: prosecutor

NICE, France (Reuters) - Planned attacks on sporting events, schools and religious sites on the French Riviera have been foiled since the killings of 86 people on Nice's seaside promenade in July, the city's prosecutor has said.

"Several cases have been passed on to the anti-terrorism prosecutor in Paris. It was about religious sites, during certain celebrations, sporting events, stadiums, schools," Prosecutor Jean-Michel Pretre told France 3 television, according to excerpts from a documentary program published on its website on Tuesday in advance of broadcast.

These cases concern "people who started to articulate things that are rather precise about a type of target or even a specific target", the prosecutor is quoted as saying.

The documentary is to be broadcast on Wednesday.

France is on high alert after a string of militant attacks over the last two years.

A Tunisian man was able to drive a 19-tonne truck along a packed Nice promenade, mowing down people in the Bastille Day crowd on July 14, before he was shot dead by police.

Emergency rule has been in place since attacks on Paris in November last year in which Islamist militants killed 130 people.

Another 17 people were killed in January 2015 in attacks that began with the shooting of journalists working for Charlie Hebdo, a satirical weekly that had published cartoons mocking Islam.

(Reporting by Matthias Galante; writing by Michel Rose; editing by Andrew Roche)

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