France has marked a national moment of silence in memory of the 84 people killed in the Nice truck attack, as thousands of people massed on the city's waterfront promenade.

Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy has defended his government’s attempts to shore up the country’s troubled financial sector, blaming the previous Socialist administration for failing to deal with the problem in 2009.

The French government and opposition parties were squaring off today on plans to reform the short working week – a pillar of the previous Socialist administration now denounced by critics as economically crippling.

Al-Qaida-linked fanatics were being hunted in Indonesia tonight after a car bomb blast outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta killed nine people and wounding 160 in a devastating strike on a key US ally in the war in Iraq.