Hopes rise for French reporter hostage

French authorities have received increasing contacts and information about a French journalist taken hostage in Iraq, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin said today.

Raffarin said the stepped-up communications offered cautious hope that Liberation newspaper reporter Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun al-Saadi, her Iraqi interpreter, could be freed.

“It appears to us today important to have stabilised some contacts with people who, like us, want the liberation of Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun,” Raffarin said on Radio-J.

“The official French services have noticed an acceleration in contacts and information,” about Aubenas, he said, “which allows us today to have some hope.”

Raffarin, who did not specify with whom the contacts were made, added that he remains “very prudent” about the situation.

Aubenas, a veteran reporter, and Hanoun disappeared January 5 and were last seen leaving her Baghdad hotel. It is not known who might be holding her.

The first public sign that Aubenas was alive came March 1, when a video showing the reporter pale, drawn and appealing for help was dropped off at the office of a news agency in Baghdad.