French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France will create 2,680 new security positions over the next three years to help counter the threat of Islamic extremism.

Valls announced the new measure Wednesday after his weekly cabinet meeting, saying Paris will spend nearly $500 million on the effort to boost the fight against terrorism, in the wake of the deadly attacks earlier this month.

Also Wednesday, French investigators said they have charged four people in connection with the attack on a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris that resulted in four deaths.

Prosecutors said that the men charged have ties to Amedy Coulibaly, who killed four people in a hostage standoff at a Jewish supermarket January 9. The day before, he killed a policewoman.

The four men are suspected of having provided support for Coulibaly, who was later killed by police.

The Associated Press names the charge as “association with terrorism.”

The shootings were part of three days of terror attacks on Paris that started with the killing of 12 people at the Paris headquarters of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday January 7.

Valls told reporters Tuesday that the recent attacks in Paris have exposed a “geographic, social and ethnic apartheid” in France.

France has been on high alert since the terror attacks in early January.

Charlie Hebdo, which is known for mocking religion, became the focus of worldwide sympathy after the terror attacks. Its first edition after the attacks sold out three million copies — many times the magazine’s usual circulation — within minutes. The run was later increased to five million, despite a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on the cover.
…