An Iraqi militant group has kidnapped two French journalists and given the French government 48 hours to end its ban on Muslim headscarves in school.
Arabic television station Al Jazeera carried the report and identified the hostages as reporters George Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot. Last week, the French Foreign Ministry said the two men had gone missing in Iraq.
The channel aired a brief video yesterday showing what it said were the two journalists standing in front of a black banner bearing the name of the Islamic Army in Iraq. One man told the camera: "I would like to tell my family that everything is OK".
Malbrunot worked for Le Figaro and Ouest France newspapers and Chesnot for Radio France International. They were declared missing on the day Italy said freelance journalist Enzo Baldoni was also missing and his driver had been reportedly killed.
Jean-Louis Validire, editor-in-chief of Le Figaro's foreign service, said Malbrunot and Chesnot were last spotted in Baghdad on August 20 and were probably preparing to go to the Iraqi city of Najaf where U.S. troops battled an insurgency.
Baldoni was ambushed along the Baghdad-Najaf road and taken hostage by the Islamic Army in Iraq. On Thursday, Al Jazeera reported the group killed him because Italy refused to heed a deadline to withdraw troops from Iraq.
The Al Jazeera announcer said the Islamic Army in Iraq issued an ultimatum to France to abandon its "unfair and aggressive" ban on Muslim headscarves in state schools within 48 hours. It did not say whether the group threatened to kill its captives if France did not comply.
RFI vice president Alain Menargues told LCI television it was a great relief to see the two reporters alive, but knowing their situation made waiting for news hard to bear.
"I'm thinking of my Italian colleague, I'm thinking of these two Frenchmen and I say to myself maybe there is still hope. So let's hang on to that hope," he said.
The French Foreign Ministry confirmed it had heard the news about the two journalists broadcast on Al Jazeera and said its embassy in Baghdad was ready to act.
"More than ever before, the French embassy in Baghdad, as the other French authorities, are mobilised for action," a French Foreign Ministry spokesman said. "Once again, we call for the freeing of the two French journalists."
France is home to five million Muslims, the largest Muslim population in Europe. Its law banning Muslim headscarves in state schools passed its final parliamentary hurdle in March.
The government said it instituted the ban to guarantee religious freedom by keeping all faiths out of state schools.
Dalil Boubakeur, head of the French Council of the Muslim Faith, said he was concerned suspicions could arise that France's Muslims had something to do with the hostage taking.
"I beg that there not be any confusion between the French Muslim community and this odious blackmail," he said.
Like most French Muslim leaders, Boubakeur did not approve of the ban before it was passed but said he would respect it once it became law.
"I am dismayed by the gravity of the emergency situation that has developed," he told LCI television. "Let us pray to God that the lives of these journalists are saved by any way possible."
France also banned Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses at the same time, but the wording of the law, and the heated debate that preceded it, made it clear the growing trend among Muslim schoolgirls for headscarves was the main target.
Some fear the ban could provoke high-profile protests when school reopens in France next week.
Activist groups have branded the headscarf law discriminatory and defended what they said was the religious obligation of all Muslim women to cover their hair.
Earlier this year, senior al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri lambasted France's ban on Muslim headscarves, saying in an audio tape that Paris was displaying "Crusader hatred" towards Islam.
The Islamic Army in Iraq also earlier said it had kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in Iraq and showed the man on a video tape aired by Arabic television channels.