PARIS: France's National Assembly voted in the early hours of Wednesday to extend the country's state of emergency for six months following last week's massacre in Nice.

The state of emergency has been in place since the Paris attacks in November. The extension would see the emergency security measures, which give the police extra powers to carry out searches and place people under house arrest,remain in place until the end of January 2017.

It is the fourth time that parliament has proposed prolonging the state of emergency, and the move now needs to be approved by the Senate.

President Francois Hollande had last Thursday announced a plan to lift the emergency measures, but he changed tack hours later after a truck driver ploughed through a crowd leaving a July 14 fireworks display in Nice, killing 84 people in an attack later claimed by the militant Islamic State group.

Hollande's Socialist government has been under heavy criticism for its response to a slew of extremist attacks.