The French authorities deployed around 13,500 gendarmes and members of the police and army to guard Easter Sunday celebrations at some 4,350 Christian religious sites throughout the country amid heightened concerns of terrorist attack. Detailing the security measures in place for Sunday morning, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said in Pontoise on the north-western outskirts of Paris that the security presence was necessary to safeguard freedom of worship. Churches and Christians had been targeted in France in the past, he said. France imposed the highest terrorism alert level following the r…