http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11707281
The French embassy is organising on Monday an emergency medical airlift of about 40 wounded people from the church attack and some helpers to accompany them.
But the French ambassador in Baghdad, Boris Boillon, insisted that the evacuation was a purely humanitarian medical affair and that a separate offer of 1,000 visas to Iraqis in general - not just Christians - was part of a European programme dating back to 2008.
"France has a long tradition going back several hundred years of offering sanctuary to people in danger," he told the BBC.