"The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge welcome the judge's ruling," said a spokeswoman for St James's Palace, using the British royal couple's formal title.

An emergency injunction granted by a civil court at Nanterre in the Paris suburbs ordered the celebrity magazine to hand over all versions of the pictures to representatives of the royals within 24 hours.

Any refusal to do so will lead to a 10,000-euro ($13,000) fine for every day's delay.

The injunction also bans the magazine, which published the pictures on Friday to the royal couple's dismay, from reusing them in print or on its website and from re-selling them. Each infraction will also be subject to a 10,000-euro fine.

The grainy shots, taken while the couple were on holiday at a chateau in the south of France, are already widely available on the Internet and have been printed in Ireland's Daily Star newspaper and Italy's Chi magazine.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2012