Government authorities and Muslim leaders urged calm in France, which has Western Europe's largest Muslim population.

CFCM, an umbrella group for French Muslims, issued a statement expressing "deep concern" over the caricatures and warning that "in a very tense context, it risks exacerbating tensions and provoking reactions".

It urged French Muslims to "not cede to provocation and ... express their indignation in peace via legal means".

Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said organizers of a demonstration planned for Saturday against Innocence of Muslims won't receive police authorization.

"There's no reason for us to let a conflict that doesn't concern France come into our country," Ayrault told RTL.

Paris prosecutors have opened an investigation into an unauthorized protest last Saturday around the US embassy that drew about 150 people and led to scores of arrests.

Responsibility urged

Charlie Hebdo's latest move was greeted with immediate calls from political and religious leaders for the media to act responsibly and avoid inflaming the current situation.

The magazine's editor, originally a cartoonist who uses the name Charb, denied he was being deliberately provocative at a delicate time.

"The freedom of the press, is that a provocation?" he said. "I'm not asking strict Muslims to read Charlie Hebdo, just like I wouldn't go to a mosque to listen to speeches that go against everything I believe."

Dalil Boubakeur, the senior cleric at Paris' biggest mosque, appealed to France's four million Muslims to remain calm.

"It is with astonishment, sadness and concern that I have learned that this publication is risking increasing the current outrage across the Muslim world," he said.

"I would appeal to them not to pour oil on the fire."

France's Muslim Council, the community's main representative body, also appealed for calm in the face of "this new act of Islamaphobia".

Reuters-AP-AFP