Betancourt crying with joy
2008-07-04 17:03
Paris - Former hostage Ingrid Betancourt says she is crying with joy about her arrival in France after six years held captive in the Colombian jungle.
President Nicolas Sarkozy and first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy have greeted the French-Colombian politician with hugs, kisses and broad smiles at the Villacoublay air base southwest of Paris.
Betancourt says she has "cried a lot during this time from pain and indignation." Today, she says, "I cry with joy."
Betancourt's children and other family members also descended from the French government plane and joined their mother and the presidential couple on the windswept tarmac on Friday.
Betancourt, a citizen of both France and Colombia, was campaigning for Colombia's presidency when she was kidnapped in 2002. She was released in a government raid Wednesday.
- AP