PARIS (AFP) - France vowed to work "with discretion and a sense of responsibility" in its bid to free two French reporters held hostage in Iraq, amid a flurry of angry finger-pointing over a botched rescue plan by a French MP.
"Our only demand until the effective release of Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot will remain their safety," Foreign Minister Michel Barnier said after the government held an emergency meeting to discuss developments on the two seasoned reporters.
"On the ground, we will continue to work until this release with discretion, perserverance, a sense of responsibility but also patience," Barnier said.
Malbrunot of Le Figaro newspaper and Chesnot of Radio France International, were abducted south of Baghdad August 20 along with their Syrian driver.
The three men are believed to be in the hands of an insurgent group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq.
Barnier made no reference to a failed freelance mission to secure the two men's release by Didier Julia, a 70-year-old member of President Jacques Chirac's ruling UMP party.
Julia returned to the French capital late Monday after spending four days in the Syrian capital of Damascus overseeing the liberation efforts.
Julia earned the reprobation of France last Friday, when he declared there was a convoy carrying the journalists out of Iraq -- along with his associate, a former French navy commando named Philippe Brett who he said had arranged their release -- but it failed to materialise.
Julia's assertions revealed inconsistencies and raised questions about the extent the MP might have collaborated with officials from France or other countries.
Chirac's office took the unusual step of saying government authorities "only discovered the reality of the operation run by Mr Julia from Damascus after it had been started" following a report in Le Monde newspaper claiming the president knew about the "fiasco" all along.
That newspaper and others suggested the condemnation officials levelled at Julia after the mission failed might have been to cover up government involvement in an operation to free the reporters -- possibly by paying a ransom -- away from public scrutiny.
On the weekend, Chirac slammed Julia's "interference" while Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said such private initiatives could create "a threat for our fellow countrymen".
The opposition Socialist party's spokesman, Julien Dray, said Julia had probably "not acted as a lone gunslinger" and warned Raffarin would be grilled on the matter in parliament on Tuesday.
For his part, Julia said on arriving back in Paris that he had had "no mandate either from the presidential office or anybody else."
Chirac's spokesman, Jerome Bonnafont, earlier said that French officials "never approved, nor backed the personal initiative of Didier Julia and his collaborators."
He added that "much information is being transmitted to French authorities" about the hostages.
Each lead is weighed carefully, he said, but information Julia provided on September 27 about his operation was too "imprecise" to warrant a response.
Chesnot and Malbrunot's families issued a statement Monday asking "all of France's representative figures to not get into debates that could undermine the national consensus and, at the same time, have consequences on the liberation of Christian and Georges."
They called on "the responsibility and discretion of everybody so that negotiations resume in the necessary calm."