Released French hostages return home

Two French reporters, freed from four months of captivity in Iraq, arrived home tonight as the government said it negotiated an end to their ordeal without paying a ransom.

Christian Chesnot, of Radio France Internationale, and Georges Malbrunot, of the newspaper Le Figaro, were flown to Villacoublay military airport outside Paris and greeted by their sobbing families and President Jacques Chirac on the tarmac.

Their safe arrival on French soil, a day after their release, ended a four month drama that had gripped this country, which had opposed the US led invasion of Iraq.

Chesnot, 38, and Malbrunot, 41, disappeared on August 20 along with their Syrian driver as they headed to the city of Najaf.

The driver, Mohammed al-Joundi, was freed by US troops, who found him in Fallujah during last month’s assault on the rebel stronghold, and is now in France.

The reporters, who were released on Tuesday, had been held by a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq, which has killed hostages in the past.

The release was negotiated through intermediaries and no ransom was paid, said Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.

“No concessions” were made, Raffarin told parliament, denouncing terrorism as “the adversary of democracy”.

The journalists were among more than 170 foreigners kidnapped in Iraq. More than 30 have been killed.

The French pair were reported in good health, treated ”reasonably well” during their captivity, said Radio France head Jean-Paul Cluzel.

Chirac expressed “personal joy and that of all French to know that they are finally free and soon home with us”.

He said France opposes “all forms of terrorism” and that the reporters were freed by the government’s ”responsible and tenacious action” as well as national solidarity that surrounded the hostage crisis.

France’s Muslim community lined up behind the government’s efforts to win the men’s freedom, with three French Muslim leaders travelling to Baghdad in September.

Questions about how Paris tried to secure their release have been raised sporadically, although French media largely avoided such prickly issues so as not to compromise the hostages’ safety.

Authorities have spoken often about their “discreet” efforts to win their freedom, but never hinted at what was being done.

With the men’s release, a multitude of theories about how, and why, they were freed came forth.

The Arab television station Al-Jazeera reported that it received a statement from the Islamic Army of Iraq saying the reporters were released after it was proven they were not US spies and because of pleas made by Muslim groups and the French government’s stance toward Iraq.

The newspaper Le Monde, quoting a source in the DGSE spy agency involved in the case, said the hostages were held ”nearly to the end” in Fallujah and the US assault there “contributed to the denouement … for the simple reason that the kidnappers had lost their sanctuary”.

Le Figaro said it was Arab mobilisation that brought their freedom. “France played its influence in the Arab world and the prestige it won by opposing the United States’ policy in Iraq,” the paper said.

However, analyst Francois Gere said the hostages were released because they were journalists – not because they were French.

“Their status as members of the press certainly had an impact – much more important than their nationality,” said Gere, who heads the French Institute of Strategic Analysis.