(This report was updated at 7.30 pm Friday)
Twenty-eight French nationals are among the more than 120 people injured in the terrorist attacks in Spain on Thursday and early Friday, French foreign affairs minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday.
Eight of the injured French were in a serious condition on Friday, among them four children, detailed Le Drian, speaking from the French consulate in Barcelona. He said a total of 18 French nationals were hospitalised.
“I say this with some precaution because not all of the [victims’] remains have yet been identifies by the Spanish authorities, but everything suggests that this figure is final and that there are aren’t any French deaths,” he added.
It was not immediately clear whether all of the French injured were hurt in the attack in Barcelona, or if any were among those injured in an attack hours later in a town south of the Catalan city.
The victims of the attack in Barceloan, when a van was driven at speed into crowds on Las Ramblas avenue in the centre of the city shortly before 5pm local time on Thursday, include at least 34 nationalities according to Catalan authorities. At least 13 people died at the scene.
A separate attack occurred about eight hours later, in the early hours of Friday, at Cambrils, a coastal resort 120 kilometres south of Barcelona, when five men ploughed an Audi A3 saloon car into several pedestrians, among who was a woman who later died from her injuries. Six other people were injured, including a police officer. The five attackers, reportedly wearing fake explosive belts, were shot dead by police.
The Spanish authorities said they have identified four men wanted in connection with the attacks, one of them suspected of being the van driver in the Barcelona rampage.
Speaking on Friday afternoon, French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said: “From the information that I have at this present time, none of the suspects and [...] those who committed these attacks is known to French [security] services but we of course will do everything that is within our power to assist the Spanish government.”
“We are faced with an extremely high level of threat,” said Philippe, who added that the government nevertheless would go ahead with its plans to lift by November 1st the state of emergency introduced in France after the terrorist attacks in the country in November 2015.
Controls of traffic crossing the French-Spanish border were stepped up on Friday, confirmed French interior minister Gérard Collomb.
French judicial authorities announced on Friday that an investigation into the Barcelona attack, as is usual practice when French nationals are victims of serious crime abroad.
Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron, in a message posted on Twitter, spoke of France’s “solidarity” with the victims of the attack in Barcelona, adding, “We remain united and determined”. In a separate message on twitter on Friday, he underlined that “France has paid a heavy price in this terrible attack”.
The French consulate in Barcelona has issued a local phone number for French citizens present in the city who require help: 93 270 30 35. The French foreign affairs ministry has also issued a Paris phone number for relatives of those affected by the attacks in Spain: 01 43 17 51 00.