PARIS (Reuters) – France will deploy 10,000 soldiers on home soil by today and post almost 5,000 extra police officers to protect Jewish sites after the killing of 17 people by Islamist militants in Paris last week, officials said.
Speaking a day after the biggest French public demonstration ever recorded, in honour of the victims, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the country remained at risk of further attacks. Soldiers would guard transport hubs, tourism sites and key buildings and mount general street patrols.
“The threats remain and we have to protect ourselves from them. It is an internal operation that will mobilise almost as many men as we have in our overseas operations,” Le Drian told reporters after a cabinet meeting.
The victims, including journalists and police, died in three days of violence that began on Wednesday with an attack on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, known for mocking Islam and other religions. Many at Sunday’s march wore badges and carried placards declaring “Je suis Charlie” (“I Am Charlie”).
The Charlie Hebdo gunmen, two French-born brothers of Algerian origin, singled out the weekly for its publication of cartoons depicting and ridiculing the Prophet Mohammad.
Charlie Hebdo’s remaining members are working on an eight-page issue due to come out tomorrow with a one-million copy print run. Its lawyer, Richard Malka, told France Info radio there would be caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.
“We will not give in. The spirit of ‘I am Charlie’ means the right to blaspheme,” he said, adding that the front page would be released last evening.
The three days of bloodshed ended on Friday with a siege at a Jewish deli in Paris where four hostages and another gunman were killed.
That gunman declared allegiance to Islamic State and said he was acting in response to French military deployments against militant Islamist groups overseas.
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said 4,700 police officers would be placed at all 717 Jewish schools across the country in addition to some 4,100 gendarmes already deployed.
“Synagogues, Jewish schools, but also mosques will be protected because in the past few days there have been a number of attacks against mosques,” Prime Minister Manuel Valls told BFM TV.
France has the European Union’s largest Muslim and Jewish communities.
The first two attackers, brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi who travelled to Yemen in 2011 for training, were killed on Friday after a siege northeast of the capital. Police said all three men were part of the same Paris-based Islamist cell.
The French Justice Ministry said Cherif Kouachi had made the journey to Yemen even though he had been banned from leaving France at the time.
Kouachi was detained from May to October 2010 on suspicion of being part of a group that tried to help Smain Ali Belkacem, author of a 1995 attack on the Paris transport system that killed eight people and wounded 120, to break out of prison.
On his release, Kouachi was placed under judicial control, which forbade him from leaving France, Justice Ministry spokesman Pierre Rance said. The case against Kouachi was eventually dropped.
