ANKARA

 French authorities have announced that France will deploy 10,000 troops to ensure security in "sensitive" areas of the country following last week's attacks in France which left 17 people dead, the country's defense minister has said.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, France's Defense Minister called the deployment "an unprecedented mobilization of the armed forces as part of a civil protection mission" on Monday at the end of the crisis meeting at the Elysee Palace, the official presidential residence.

He said: "The president asked the armed forces to participate in the security of sensitive areas of the country due to the scale of the threats that exist."

"We have decided that, from Tuesday night, 10,000 troops will be deployed in sensitive areas throughout the territory."

Manuel Valls, France’s Prime Minister, told the BFM TV: "The alarm level in the fight against terrorism has been maximized."

'Millions march'

The Vigipirate system, France's national security alert system created by President Valery Giscard d'Estaing in 1978, was raised to "attack alert" after the shooting at the headquarters of Charlie Hebdo in Paris, the first in a series of attacks in the country last week.

Valls said Amedy Coulibaly, the gunman who killed four people a day in a kosher supermarket in the French capital on Friday, a day after shooting dead a 27-year-old policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe in Montrouge, southern Paris, was probably helped by unknown assistants.

The troop deployment came a day after more than 55 world leaders and an estimated crowd of up to two million people marched in Paris in a symbolic unity march to pay tribute to the victims of last week's attacks.

Said and Cherif Kouachi were killed in a shootout with police at a printing business in a village north of Paris on Friday, two days after they stormed the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices and killed 12 people.