Hopes grow for release of French hostages

Hopes grew tonight for the release of two French journalists held hostage in Iraq, with France’s foreign minister saying he had received word that they were alive and one of their employers saying their kidnappers have handed them over to another group.

Jean de Belot, managing editor of Le Figaro newspaper, said the militants who claimed to be holding the reporters, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, had handed them over to an Iraqi Sunni Muslim opposition group.

“That is an extremely positive point,” de Belot said. “But we must be prudent in this kind of mixed-up situation because we know well that until the good news arrives, we can’t let ourselves be absolutely reassured.”

French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier also sounded cautiously optimistic.

“According to the indications which were given to us and we are studying at this moment with caution, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot are alive, in good health and are being well treated,” he said at a news conference in Amman.

French envoys held crisis talks in Iraq and Jordan today in a desperate bid to free the reporters.

Chesnot, 37, of Radio France International, and Malbrunot, 41, reporting for the daily Le Figaro, were last heard from on August 19 as they set off for the southern city of Najaf. Their Syrian chauffeur also vanished.