PARIS, March 2 (AFP) - French intelligence services were Wednesday studying two videos of a reporter taken hostage in Iraq - one of which was broadcast the day before - amid suspicions that Syria had links to those holding her, media said.

The front pages of all of France's dailies were given over to the latest video, initially shown by Italian television station Sky-Italia Tuesday, which showed Florence Aubenas, a senior correspondent of the Liberation newspaper, looking gaunt and desperate.

"Please help me. My health is very bad. I'm very bad psychologically also," Aubenas was seen pleading, in English, her knees drawn up to her chest and sitting in front of a plain reddish background.

"This is urgent now. Help me! I ask especially Mr Didier Julia, the French deputy. Please Mr Julia. Help me! It's urgent. Mr Julia help me!" she said in the 50-second video.

Technical experts at the DGSE foreign espionage service and other branches of the defence ministry were analysing the video to try to determine when and where it was taken.

The government and Liberation said an earlier video, contained on a CD-ROM, had been received last week.

Liberation said Wednesday that that video, which lasted 40 seconds, was not made public at the demand of authorities, who claimed to be observing a request by the kidnappers. It showed Aubenas against a black background, essentially making the same statement in English - but without the reference to Julia.

In both cases, there has been no indication as to who is holding Aubenas, nor mention of any demands nor of Aubenas's Iraqi interpreter, Hussein Hanun al-Saadi, who disappeared with her in Baghdad on January 5.

But the Julia reference has concerned and puzzled French officials and the media - and raised speculation that Syria might have a link to the hostage-takers.

Julia, an Arabic-speaking MP in President Jacques Chirac's ruling UMP party, is seen as having ties to Damascus.

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