PARIS, Dec. 28 (Xinhuanet) -- France is to examine the video broadcast by Al-Arabiya television showing the kidnappers of French engineer Bernard Planche threatened to kill him, French Foreign Ministry said Wednesday.

    "We are obviously going to examine the images broadcast by Al-Arabiya and we are going to do it very carefully," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes Romatet-Espagne.

    She said that France would do everything possible to obtain hisrelease but stressed that the "highest degree of discretion" was required.

    "We demand the immediate release of Mr Planche as nothing can justify his being taken hostage in Iraq," she said.

    A group, calling itself the Battalion of the Look-out for Iraq,claimed the kidnapping and "threatened to kill him if France does not end its illegitimate presence in Iraq," the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya channel reported in a black-and-white video bearing the group's logo and showing a man with a moustache on his knees and wearing a dark polo shirt with two gunmen stood behind him.

    Planche was seized on Dec. 5 from his home in an upmarket Baghdad neighborhood. Enditem