Freed French journalists describe ordeal

Two French journalists freed from captivity in Iraq arrived home describing a harrowing four-month ordeal during which they feared for their lives but never lost hope.

Clean-shaven and wide-eyed, smiling and apparently healthy, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot walked off the plane at Villacoublay military airport outside Paris yesterday, through a chilly evening rain and into the arms of sobbing family members waiting on the tarmac.

President Jacques Chirac personally greeted the reporters, along with several top cabinet ministers.

“We’re fine,” said Malbrunot, his hair long and shaggy. ”We lived through a difficult experience – sometimes very difficult – but we never lost hope.”

“It’s a very tough situation to be surrounded by people with guns and in masks,” said Malbrunot, describing how the pair was kept initially in a Baghdad suburb but then moved four times.

When transported, they were put in the back of a truck, tied up and blindfolded with blankets over them, sometimes hearing the sound of bombs exploding nearby.

Part of their survival strategy, Malbrunot said, was to dissociate themselves from the US.

“We immediately played the French journalist card” and repeatedly reminded the captors that “France was against the war”, he said. “That allowed us to show we were not pro-American.”

Chesnot said the two were never mistreated.

“The conditions were rather good because we were not badly-treated,” said Chesnot, who stuttered at times as he spoke and appeared to have lost weight. He said that the pair was initially fed a “tight diet”.

Chesnot, 38, of Radio France Internationale, and Malbrunot, 41, of the daily Le Figaro, disappeared on August 20 along with their Syrian driver as they headed to the city of Najaf. The driver, Mohammed al-Joundi, was freed in November 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. They were delivered to the French Embassy in Baghdad, officials said.

Paris has said it negotiated an end to the ordeal without paying a ransom, but officials have refused to divulge details.