French forces hunting for Boumeddiene, girlfriend of Amedy Coulibaly, who died on Friday when security forces stormed a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris
France will deploy some 500 extra military personnel in the greater Paris region, the defence ministry said on Saturday, the day after twin sieges sowed fear on the streets of the capital.
“We will this morning announce a reinforcement of 500 additional military personnel, in two waves in Ile de France,” said the ministry, referring to Paris and the immediate surrounding areas.
France will take “all measures” to ensure the safety of Sunday’s march to be attended by mostly European leaders after this week’s attacks and is maintaining its highest possible security level in the Paris area, the interior minister said.
“All measures have been taken to assure the security of the rally,” he said, after Hollande warned that the threats facing France “weren’t over”.
With fears spreading in the wake of the attack, the United States also warned of a global threat, telling its citizens to beware of “terrorist actions and violence” all over the world.
Hollande, meanwhile, described the attack on the supermarket as an “appalling anti-Semitic act” and said, “These fanatics have nothing to do with the Muslim religion.”
FRENCH HUNT FOR GUNMAN’S GIRLFRIEND
French forces on Saturday were frantically hunting for 26-year-old Hayat Boumeddiene, the girlfriend of Amedy Coulibaly, who died on Friday when security forces stormed a Jewish supermarket in eastern Paris where he had taken terrified shoppers hostage.
Coulibaly, who said he was a member of the Islamic State group, slaughtered four hostages during the assault and called friends from the scene urging them to stage further attacks.
After militant groups issued chilling warnings of fresh attacks, authorities pursued Boumeddiene, said to be “armed and dangerous.”
Coulibaly and Boumeddiene are the prime suspects in the earlier murder of policewoman on Thursday just outside the French capital.
A crossbow in her hands and covered top-to-toe in a black headwear and robe that leaves only her eyes visible — that is the image now circulating of France’s most-wanted woman.
The photo, first published by Le Monde newspaper, contrasts with the one French police issued in its public appeal to locate her following Friday’s bloody drama.
The mugshot provided by the police shows a sleepy-eyed young woman, her face and brown hair showing, whom they had questioned in 2010 about Coulibaly.
Police also suspect she might have had a hand in Coulibaly’s supermarket hostage-taking, though she was not identified among the dead or wounded.
Coulibaly moved back in with her in May last year when he was released from his last period behind bars.
One of seven children to a mother who died when she was six, Boumeddiene was put into foster care with her young siblings because her father, a delivery man, was unable to take care of them.
She had a religious ceremony in 2009 to “marry” Coulibaly, though such unions are not recognised in France unless preceded by a civil ceremony conducted by local officials, and the couple lived in a modest apartment in the poor suburb south of Paris.
Le Parisien newspaper said she lost her job as a cashier because she insisted on wearing niqab.
MARCH OF UNITY
Hollande held an emergency meeting of key ministers early Saturday, hours after a dramatic end to twin sieges that also resulted in the death of the two brothers who had killed 12 at the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine on Wednesday.
President Francois Hollande said he would attend a march of unity in Paris on Sunday expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people as well as the leaders of countries including Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu will also travel to Paris to take part in the rally, the official Anatolia news agency reported.
Davutoglu will be the most prominent leader of a majority Muslim country at the rally, joining other world leaders including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron.
His attendance also comes despite growing tensions between Turkey and the European Union over allegations of an erosion of civil and media freedoms under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Davutoglu had this week condemned the massacre by two brothers with jihadist connections at the offices of Charlie Hebdo as “terrorist attack”, saying there could be no link between Islam and violence.
