The brothers carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack before leading security forces on a massive manhunt that ended at a small printing business outside Paris where they took the manager hostage.
Police gunned them down after they ran out of the building spraying bullets in a final act of defiance.
Coulibaly claimed he had coordinated his acts with the brothers.
The repeat criminal offender had also been convicted for extremist activity and swore allegiance to the Islamic State group.
– Hunt goes on –
As investigators hunted for those who may have assisted the killers, images of Coulibaly’s wanted partner Hayat Boumeddiene emerged at Istanbul airport accompanied by an unidentified man. She is believed to have entered Turkey before the attacks and went on to Syria.
“We think there are in fact probably accomplices,” Valls told French radio. “The hunt will go on.”
In Bulgaria it emerged a Frenchman arrested on January 1 trying to cross into Turkey was in contact with Cherif Kouachi.
France has been on high alert for several months over its citizens who go to fight alongside Islamic State jihadists in Iraq and Syria, some of whom have been pictured in grisly execution videos.
Valls also said 1,400 people were known to have left to fight in Syria and Iraq, or were planning to do so. Seventy French citizens have died there.
The IS group has issued direct threats against France which is carrying out air strikes against them in Iraq as part of a US led coalition.
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