French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier is to immediately travel to Iraq to coordinate measures to be taken for the release of two French journalists held hostage by militants, said French Presdient Jacques Chirac in a television appearance Sunday. On Sunday, the French government called for the release of the two journalists Georges Malbrunot, a journalist with the leading French daily Le Figaro, and Christian Chesnot of Radio France Internationale. They were kidnapped in Najaf by Islamic militants who demanded that France end its ban on Moslem headscarves in schools, reports said Saturday. The militants, who called themselves the Islamic Army in Iraq, gave Paris 48 hours to respond and threatened to kill the hostages if their demand was not met. Earlier Sunday French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and several of his ministers held a crisis meeting to discuss the kidnapping, a spokesman for the foreign ministry said. The French embassy in Baghdad and authorities in France have been mobilised to try to bring about the swift release of the two men, the spokesman said. Islamic authorities in France have condemned the threat and said kidnappings were not the way to reverse the headscarf ban. The controversial law will see all religious symbols prohibited in French schools including Christian crosses, Islamic head scarves and Jewish skull caps.
