A huge security operation is being prepared ahead of unity marches in France, as the hunt for a fugitive linked to the Paris massacres took a new twist.

Key members of the French government will meet today to decide on new measures aimed at thwarting a repeat of the attacks in Paris that saw a massacre of 12 people at a satirical newspaper, and a supermarket bloodbath that left four hostages dead.

French detectives are continuing to search for fugitives suspected to have been involved in the Paris massacres, as details of how police foiled the terrorists’ operations have begun to unfold.

As the French hostage crisis came to a bloody end last night with the loss of 20 lives, al-Qaeda claimed it had directed the attack against the satirical magazine ‘Charlie Hebdo’ in Paris "as revenge for the honour" of Islam’s Prophet Mohammed.

President Francois Hollande warned that the danger to France, home to the European Union’s biggest communities of both Muslims and Jews, was not over yet.

Security forces dramatically ended a three-day terror spree around Paris, killing the two al Qaida-linked brothers who staged a murderous rampage at a satirical magazine, and an associate who seized a kosher supermarket to try to help them escape.

French President Francois Hollande has called on the country to “remain vigilant” as the hostage crisis which started at the Charlie Hebdo magazine massacre came to a bloody end with the loss of at least 20 lives.