Militants holding two French journalists in Iraq have extended a deadline by 24 hours for Paris to rescind a ban on Muslim headscarves in schools, Al Jazeera television reported.
The previous 48-hour deadline expired tonight. No further details were given.
Al Jazeera reported earlier that the two journalists, Mr Christian Chesnot and Mr Georges Malbrunot, urged France to heed their captors' demand and rescind the ban or else they might be killed soon.
The Arabic TV station showed the two journalists speaking to the camera, urging the French people to hold protests and persuade their government to retract the ban.
France, which was among the most vocal opponents of the war in Iraq, had made an impassioned plea to the Islamic Army in Iraq to free the men.
The militant group, which said last week it had killed Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, on Saturday gave the French government 48 hours to rescind a ban on headscarves in schools.
Mr Chesnot, of Radio France Internationale, and Mr Malbrunot, who writes for the dailies Le Figaroand Ouest France, disappeared on August 20th on their way from Baghdad to Najaf, the day after Baldoni was seized.
The crisis has stunned France, which campaigned against the 2003 invasion of Iraq and so had considered itself relatively safe from militant attack. France also opposed the 1990-2003 economic sanctions on Iraq.
French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier, in Egypt at the start of a Middle East tour to appeal for regional help, made an impassioned plea to the Islamic Army in Iraq holding the men.
"I call for their release in the name of the principles of humanity and respect for human beings which are at the very heart of the message of Islam and Muslim religious practice," Mr Barnier told reporters at the French embassy in Cairo.
"Their kidnapping is incomprehensible to all those who know that France, the country of origin of human rights, is a land of tolerance and of respect for others," Mr Barnier said before seeing Arab League chief Mr Amr Moussa and Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit.
France passed the law banning ostentatious religious symbols in schools in March in reaction to the growing influence of Islamist activists and tensions between Muslim and Jewish youths in schools. The law also bans Jewish skullcaps and large Christian crosses.