French police are searching for a 26-year-old woman in the wake of two deadly standoffs near Paris on Friday.

Hayat Boumeddiene is now the focus of a massive police hunt after two separate hostage situations ended in bloodshed.

Police shot dead brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi north-east of Paris and Amedy Coulibaly at a grocery store in Paris’s Porte de Vincennes neighbourhood.

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Police earlier released mugshots of Coulibaly, with Boumeddiene who is believed to be his partner, linking them to the killing of 27-year-old policewoman Clarissa Jean-Philippe south of Paris at a metro station on Thursday.

It is not known if Ms Boumeddiene was involved in the attack on the grocery store and police have not been able to locate her.

They did however describe her as being “armed and dangerous”.

Chief prosecutor Francois Molins said five associates of the gunmen are in police custody and authorities were urgently searching for Boumeddiene and any other possible accomplices.

“The investigation from now on is going to focus on capturing the partner of Amedy Coulibaly, who remains at large,” he said.

“It will also have a focus on determining who their accomplices were, how these criminals actions were financed and all the instruction and help they may have benefitted from, whether in France, from overseas or ultimately from Yemen.”

According to the Paris Public Prosecutor’s office, investigations have revealed during the past year Boumeddiene exchanged hundreds of telephone calls with Cherif Kouachi’s wife.

“The wife of Cherif Kouachi exchanged more than 500 phone calls in 2014 with the partner of Almedy Coulibaly, Hayat Boymeddiene, allowing us to establish the constant and sustained nature of the relationship between the two couples,” Mr Molins said.

– with AFP, ABC