French journalists home after captivity in Iraq

PARIS -- Two French journalists freed from a four-month hostage ordeal in Iraq came home Wednesday, saying they had feared for their lives -- sometimes being moved bound and blindfolded in the back of a truck amid the sounds of nearby explosions -- but had 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, through a chilly evening rain and into the arms of sobbing family members waiting on the tarmac.

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

"We're fine," said Malbrunot, his hair long and shaggy, at a brief news conference. "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 they were 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, he said, they heard bombs exploding nearby.

Chesnot said they were never mistreated.

"The conditions were rather good because we were not badly treated," said Chesnot, who stuttered at times and appeared to have lost weight. He said they were initially fed a "tight diet."

Chesnot, 38, of Radio France Internationale, and Malbrunot, 41, of the daily Le Figaro, disappeared Aug. 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 Tuesday, had been held by a group calling itself the Islamic Army of Iraq, which has killed other hostages.

The two men were delivered to the French Embassy in Baghdad, officials said, a release Malbrunot described as "unexpected."

"When I got out of the trunk of a Mercedes and I saw the French flag, I said to myself, 'Finally, it's over,"' he said.

The release was negotiated through intermediaries and no ransom was paid, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told politicians, according to centrist leader Francois Bayrou.

"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 slain.

Chirac, in a brief address after the two men left Baghdad, expressed "personal joy and that of all French to know that they are finally free and soon home with us." He cut short his Christmas holiday in Morocco after news broke of their release.

Chirac 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.

The release unleashed a multitude of theories about why the men were freed.

The Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera reported it received a statement from the Islamic Army of Iraq, saying the reporters were released after it was proven they were not U.S. spies and because of pleas made by Muslim groups and the French government's stance toward Iraq.

"We told them we were not American," Malbrunot said. "We immediately played the French journalist card."

He said they repeatedly reminded their captors that "France was against the war. France has a tough position against the occupation. ... That allowed us to show we were not pro-American."

France, which opposed the war in Iraq, refused to join the U.S.-led coalition that toppled Saddam Hussein.

The head of state-run Radio France, Chesnot's employer, Jean-Paul Cluzel, said the government had "indirect contacts" with the kidnappers via another group, and contacts were accelerated Friday.

The newspaper Le Monde reported the hostages were held "nearly to the end" in Fallujah, and the U.S. assault there "contributed to the denouement ... for the simple reason that the kidnappers had lost their sanctuary."

Le Figaro said it was Arab mobilization 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.

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