“Since the threat of terrorist attack against our country remains high, the head of state has decided to keep up to 10,000 armed troops mobilized in the national territory to support security forces of the Interior Ministry,” the statement on Hollande’s webpage said, following a Security Council meeting.
Hollande's statement comes during a commemoration of victims of recent and past terror attacks as part of the 11th annual European Day of Remembrance of Victims of Terrorism, which keeps alive the memory of the Madrid train bombings. The 2004 attack in the Spanish capital killed 191 commuters and injured at least 1,800.
France has been on security alert since a series of deadly shootings over three days by suspected Islamic extremists in and around Paris claimed the lives of 17 people in early January. The Paris atrocities are believed to have inspired another shooting spree in Copenhagen, Denmark, in which two people were killed.
