Kate partially nude photos: French police raid Nearer magazine offices.

Police have raided the offices of Closer magazine seeking the identity of the photographer who took pictures from the Duchess of Cambridge topless while on vacation in the south of People from france.

Officers arrived at 10am on Wednesday morning with the magazine's headquarters in the Paris, france suburb of Montrouge. They were reported to have searched the publication's offices in addition to examined journalists' computers.

A French court on Tuesday ordered Closer to hand over all copies from the photographs published on the front page and several inside pages of the publication, within 24 hours or face punitive daily fines. The court also opened a "preliminary inquiry" following a criminal lawsuit lodged by the particular Duke and Duchess of Cambridge in to a breach of the royal couple's solitude by "person or persons unknown".

Aurélien Hamelle, representing the couple, said they ended up "profoundly shocked and troubled" because of the photographs, which he said revealed "deeply intimate moments inside the life of this couple, which may have no reason to be with a magazine cover".

The Tribunal de Grande Illustration at Nanterre agreed and naturally the duke and duchess a great injunction preventing further publication from the pictures and ordering Closer to hand over the electronic files made up of them. The photographer has not really yet been identified.