Berlin, Germany: A French, two Spanish, a German and a Swiss newspapers have reprinted a series of Danish daily insulting cartoons depicting Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him and his pure progeny) after Denmark and Norway publications, and declared that freedom of press is important than protests and boycotts sparked by the caricatures in the Islamic and Arab worlds.

With a mounting diplomatic storm, calls for a boycott of Danish goods and flag-burning protests, Danish security police met Muslim religious leaders in an attempt to contain any domestic reaction to cartoons first run by the Jyllands-Posten paper.

The German Welt daily put one of the drawings on its front page on Wednesday, saying the picture was "harmless" and regretting that the Danish Jyllands-Posten daily had apologized for causing offense.

"Democracy is the institutionalized form of freedom of expression," the paper said in a front-page commentary.

Danish-Swedish dairy product maker Arla Foods, with annual Middle East sales of 3 billion Danish crowns ($488 million), said it was talking to unions about 140 job cuts due to the boycott. "We are losing around 10 million crowns per day at the moment," a spokeswoman said.

The world's biggest maker of insulin, Novo Nordisk, said it was also hit as pharmacies and hospitals in Saudi Arabia have avoided its products since Saturday.

French newspaper France Soir said it published the cartoons to show "religious dogma" has no place in secular society, the BBC reported. The French government defended the newspaper's free speech rights, as the Danish government did earlier for newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

The Norwegian Christian magazine that reprinted the caricatures has said it "regretted" offending Muslims but stopped short of issuing an apology.