The journalists, Christian Chesnot with Radio France International and Georges Malbrunot with the newspaper Le Figaro, were reported missing the morning of August 21. It was not know where they were being held.
According to Al-Jazeera, the kidnappers are demanding that the French government overturn a recently passed law that bans Muslim students from wearing headscarves in French public schools.
The ban was passed by the French parliament in the spring and is expected to go into effect in September. French lawmakers judged wearing religious attire to public school to be a violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
France, a county of 60 million, has a Muslim population of 5 million.