Gunmen seized a French engineer from outside his home in Baghdad on Monday, beating their screaming victim as they hauled him to their getaway car, neighbours said.
It was the third kidnapping of Westerners in Iraq in 10 days, after a lull in such abductions in recent months.
French and Iraqi officials identified him as Bernard Planche, an employee of a non-governmental organisation who worked at the Rusafa water treatment plant in eastern Baghdad.
In Paris, the French government confirmed Planche's disappearance and said it was working to secure his release.
"All the services of the French government are fully mobilised to ensure his release as quickly as possible," Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin told reporters.
The Frenchman was snatched by seven gunmen in two cars as he prepared to leave his home on Monday morning in the upscale west Baghdad district of Mansour, police quoted witnesses as saying. Small pools of blood were left outside the gates of his house.