Please Explain podcast: France reeling from terror attacks as COVID rages across Europe
Overnight, a woman was beheaded and two other people stabbed to death inside a church in Nice during a series of terrorist strikes that have shocked France and amplified fears of further assaults.
The French government has raised the national security alert system to its highest level following the deadly attack, the shooting of a man threatening violence in Avignon, the arrest of a man with a knife in Lyon and the wounding of a guard outside a French consulate in Saudi Arabia.
The news comes as Europe braces for a new spate of national lockdowns due to COVID-19 spreading across the continent and threatening to overwhelm hospitals with more patients than the first deadly wave earlier this year.
Germany and France announced fresh lockdowns on Wednesday in the hope to bring down the rapidly growing number of infections, hospitalisations and deaths in each country.
In this episode, national editor Tory Maguire and Europe correspondent Bevan Shields discuss the COVID threat in Europe and the atrocities France has experienced overnight.
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Tory is the national editor of The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. She has held senior roles at a number of major Australian mastheads and was most recently editor-in-chief of HuffPost Australia for two-and-a-half years.