PARIS, Sept 4 (AFP) - France kept up an anxious vigil Saturday for two journalists held by Islamic militants in Iraq, awaiting fresh news of their fate from their captors.
Although French authorities have said they are confident Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot will be released after being captured two weeks ago on the road from Baghdad to Najaf, they have urged caution.
"All the indications lead to us hope for their release soon ... but we have to remain very prudent," Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said Saturday.
He turned out to greet a delegation of Muslim leaders at Charles de Gaulle airport as they returned from Baghdad and to thank them for "courageously" pressing for the journalists` release in talks with Iraqi religious leaders.
The Islamic militants holding the two journalists had demanded that Paris rescind a ban on the wearing of headscarves and other "conspicuous" religious insignia in state schools.
But pupils widely respected the new law as the schools went back on Wednesday, after even Muslim leaders called for a show of solidarity in face of the kidnapping of Le Figaro correspondent Malbrunot and his colleague, Chesnot, from Radio France Internationale.
Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said late Friday that the hostage crisis showed France could unite in a crisis.
"This hostage taking called for the country to unite and everyone, in accordance with their religious and political convictions, surpassed themselves in the name of national unity to show that France, when put to the test, is capable of coming together," he said.
"And it is that unity which today -- even though we must remain cautious -- makes it possible for us to be confident," he said.
Mohammed Beshari, head of the French Federation of French Muslims, who travelled to Baghdad with the delegation, said the trip had been necessary and they had been able to "make our message heard that France is not at war with Islam and the Muslim community."
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, who has been in the Middle East seeking to win the men`s release, was due to meet with his Jordanian counterpart Marwan Moasher for lunch on Saturday.
"The matter is developing hour by hour," said a foreign ministry spokesman.
On Friday Sheikh Abdel Salam al-Kubeisi, an influential cleric on the Committee of Muslim Scholars in Baghdad said: "They are out of danger ... their release could just be a matter of time."