coach purses report,The two men been kidnapped in Niamey, the capital of Niger, on Friday - French troops were attempting to rescue them when they found the bodies.
No group has said it was behind the abduction, but al-Qaeda's North African offshoot has seized Westerners before.
France has warned its citizens against all travel to the Sahel region.
The foreign ministry said that the threat in the region, from Africa's western Atlantic Coast to the Red Sea in the east, meant that "no area can be considered safe any longer".
coach outletAntoine de Leocour, an aid worker in Niger, and his friend Vincent Delory were seized from a restaurant in the capital at gunpoint. Mr Delory has recently arrived in the country to attend Mr de Leocour's wedding.
coach factory outletThierry Burkhard, a spokesman for the French army, said Niger's national guard and a French surveillance plane had chased the kidnappers into the desert.
The troops launched an attack, he told the AFP news agency, in which one Niger commander was injured.