The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have launched a criminal complaint in France in relation to the publication of pictures of the duchess topless.
In a separate civil case later, the royal couple will seek to have an edition of the French magazine Closer withdrawn after it printed the images.
The images have appeared on foreign websites, the Irish Daily Star and most recently Italian gossip magazine Chi.
Chi said it was merely exercising its right to “chronicle reality”.
‘With the times’
BBC Paris correspondent Christian Fraser said there was no name listed in the criminal complaint.
He says most lawyers seem to agree that under strict French law the pictures represent an undisputed breach of privacy – an open-and-shut case.
An injunction, if granted, would lead to the magazine being withdrawn from shelves immediately but the tribunal’s judgement will only relate to the distribution of the photos in France.
The action has not stopped Closer’s Italian sister magazine, Chi, from publishing the same photos but the speed with which the royal couple have acted may deter others from publishing the pictures.
Chi has printed a special edition featuring more than 20 pages of the photographs.
It carries a picture of the duchess, topless, on its front cover with a headline that reads: “The Queen is Nude!”
In an editorial the magazine’s director, Alfonso Signorini, attempted to justify the decision to print the images by saying he considered them to be “normal and up to date with the times”.
He said: “Why, I wonder, Kate Middleton, for now Duchess of Cambridge but future queen of the United Kingdom, should be different from girls her age?
‘More likeable’
“Never has a situation managed to renew the English monarchy, with its obligations and its rigid protocol, more than this one.”
Mr Signorini said the series of pictures were “not particularly sensationalistic nor damaging to her dignity” and “surely makes her more likeable” and “less distant from all of us”.
Closer and Chi are both part of former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Mondadori media group.
Under French law the damages related to legal proceedings could run into tens of thousands of euros and, in theory, the magazine editor and photographer could be sent to jail for a year.
She has already defended publication, insisting the photos were not the least bit shocking, and has suggested that she has more intimate photos not yet published.
The co-owners of the Irish Daily Star – Britain’s Northern and Shell group and the Dublin-based publisher Independent News and Media – condemned the decision to publish the pictures and said they had had no prior knowledge of it.
Richard Desmond, chairman of Northern and Shell, said he intended to withdraw from the Republic of Ireland and had begun steps to close down the joint venture.
A source at the Irish Daily Star said the belief within the publication was that Northern and Shell would pull out of the publication on Tuesday, when a board meeting of the paper is scheduled to take place.
Independent News and Media has described plans to close the publication as “disproportionate”, while acknowledging that the paper had made a “poor editorial decision”.
No British newspaper has printed the pictures, with the Daily Mail saying it had been offered similar pictures last week but had rejected them and the Sun saying that no responsible newspaper “would touch them with a bargepole”.
Solomon Islands visit
A palace spokeswoman said: “We can confirm that a criminal complaint is to be made to the French Prosecution Department.
“It concerns the taking of photographs of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge whilst on holiday and the publication of those photographs in breach of their privacy.”
The photographs were taken while the duchess was sunbathing on a private holiday with her husband at the French chateau of the Queen’s nephew, Lord Linley, in Provence.
Meanwhile, the royal couple have been in the Solomon Islands representing the Queen on their nine-day Diamond Jubilee tour of South East Asia and the South Pacific.
Prince William and Catherine were welcomed with traditional garlands when they arrived on Sunday.
Thousands of islanders cheered the couple as they travelled through the streets of the capital Honiara in a truck decorated as canoe.
The duke and duchess wore traditional dress at the home of Governor General Frank Kabui, and posed for photographs at a state dinner – where William tried the local dialect to thank the islands for being a place of such tranquillity.
On Monday, they travelled to Marau, about 60 miles from Honiara, where they watched a warrior dance before going to the nearby island of Marapa.
After watching local women perform a shark dance in the water, the couple were taken in a traditional war canoe to the remote island resort of Tavanipupu, where they will spend the night before continuing on to Tuvalu, the last destination on their tour.