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France introduced a new terrorism alert system on Thursday, with four color-coded levels to make the national warning plan more flexible and understandable.

Until now, France had only two grades of alert for its terror warning system, simple and reinforced.

The new alert colors beginning with the least serious are yellow, red, orange and scarlet.

The system is similar to the five-color risk scale adopted by the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

France has been on reinforced alert since the terror attacks, and French authorities have been even more watchful since war broke out in Iraq.

That translated as orange under the new system. Orange calls for reinforced patrols in train stations and subways, a ban on flights over sensitive sites including nuclear plants, and increased surveillance of water distribution systems.

A yellow alert calls for measures including more train station patrols, red calls for vast stretches of France's airspace to be closed, and scarlet alert calls for the civil aviation system to be shut down, drinking water distribution limited and all train passengers are searched before boarding.

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