Hopes grew tonight for the release of two French journalists held hostage in Iraq, with France’s foreign minister saying he had received word that they were alive and one of their employers saying their kidnappers have handed them over to another group.

French envoys are to hold crisis talks in Iraq and Jordan today in a desperate bid to free two journalists seized by militants seeking to overturn France’s law banning Islamic head scarves in public schools.

Two French journalists being held hostage in Iraq called on French President Jacques Chirac to save their lives by giving in to militants’ demands to rescind a headscarf ban, according to a video shown on the Al-Jazeera television station.

President Jacques Chirac has vowed to spare no effort to free two French reporters held hostage in Iraq by militants reportedly demanding that France scrap its ban on Islamic headscarves in state schools.

France’s government today scrambled to map out its response to the kidnapping of two French journalists in Iraq, but showed no immediate signs of being ready to surrender to the hostage-takers’ reported demands.