France announced an unprecedented deployment of thousands of troops and police to bolster security at “sensitive” sites including Jewish schools on Monday, the day after marches that drew nearly four million people across the country.
“We have decided ... To mobilise 10,000 men to protect sensitive sites in the whole country from Tuesday,” Defence Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said after an emergency security meeting. “This is the first time that our troops have been mobilised to such an extent on our own soil,” he added.
Ahead of the meeting, Prime Minister Manuel Valls said one of the attackers, Amedy Coulibaly, who gunned down a policewoman and four Jewish shoppers at a kosher supermarket, likely received help from others. “I don’t want to say more, but investigations are continuing into these attacks, this barbaric terrorist acts. We think there are in fact probably accomplices,” Valls told French radio.
“The hunt will go on,” he pledged. The alert level in the shell-shocked country remained at its highest possible, as the Interior Minister announced the deployment of nearly 5,000 police to guard Jewish schools and places of worship.
Bernard Cazeneuve said he was putting in place a “powerful and durable” system of protection for France’s Jewish community, the largest in Europe. The announcement of the fresh security measures came after more than 1.5 million people in Paris marched on Sunday in unity and solidarity for the victims.