France's Defence Ministry says it is investigating child abuse allegations against its troops who were sent to quell sectarian violence and killings in the Central African Republic.
The alleged abuse took place between December 2013 and June 2014 at a centre for displaced people at M’Poko airport in Bangui, and concerned about 10 children.
France intervened in the former French colony to stem violence between Christian militias and largely Muslim Seleka rebels who had seized power.
French troops in Central African Republic
French troops in Central African Republic
Britain's Guardian newspaper said it had acquired a U.N. report that first raised allegations of the rape of young boys by French troops.
A French judicial source said the prosecutor's office had received that report in July 2014, and had asked for assistance from Central African authorities in investigating whether there had been abuse of minors.
A spokesman for U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon confirmed that the U.N. Office of Human Rights in Bangui had conducted a human rights investigation in the late spring of 2014.
It said the probe followed serious allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of children by French military personnel, before the establishment of a U.N. peacekeeping mission.
It said the unedited version of the internal report had been leaked to French authorities in late July, even before it had been passed to senior U.N. officials, and that a Geneva-based U.N. official had been suspended for a "serious breach of protocol".
France's defence and foreign ministries issued a joint statement saying that "all necessary measures" would be taken to establish the truth, and that "the toughest sanctions" would be applied to anyone proven to be guilty of abuse.