hostages

Two French tourists kidnapped while on a safari trip in Benin and who were rescued last week along with two other hostages after their captors transferred them to the Sahel region of Burkina Faso, arrived at a military airfield close to Paris on Saturday where they and a South Korean woman freed with them were greeted by President Emmanuel Macron.

Two French tourists who were taken hostage earlier this month while exploring the Pendjari national park in Benin, when their guide was murdered, arrived back in France on Saturday. They were freed from a location in nearby Burkina Faso by a special forces operation on Friday, during which two French marines lost their lives. The dramatic events have highlighted how jihadist groups have recently begun seizing control of swathes of this region of West Africa, taking advantage of a growing resentment among sections of the population against state authorities. Rémi Carayol reports.

Two marines and four suspected kidnappers died in an exchange of fire when a French special forces unit overnight rescued two French nationals, an American and a South Korean being held hostage in northern Burkina Faso.

Mehdi Nemmouche, 32, detained in Belgium on suspicion of carrying out the May 2014 shooting attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, which left four people dead, was transported to Paris on Wednesday to appear before an examining magistrate investigating his suspected role as jailkeeper in Syria between 2013 and 2014 of four French journalists taken hostage there.

Gunmen shouting 'God is great!' have seized control of Radisson Blu Hotel in capital of Mali where French troops intervened in 2013.

Salim Benghalem, 35, said to be one of captors who held four French reporters, who were freed in April 2014 after 10 months in captivity.

Police released 18 people trapped inside a Primark clothing store in Villeneuve-la-Garenne after an attempted armed robbery.

Stories emerge of how hidden man at besieged printing works fed information to police by text, while a father hid his son in supermarket fridge.

The man, who features in the film showing IS militants beheading hostages, has been named as Islamic convert Michael Dos Santos, 22.

Serge Lazarevic, held in the Sahara for almost three years since kidnapped in Mali, asks French president 'to do everything to free me'.

Didier François, released by IS earlier this year, said repeated mock executions leave hostages unaware of when the jihadists decide to kill.

Libération insists Mehdi Nemmouche told journalists held hostage in Syria of his plan to attack Paris, but interior minister dismisses claim.

German magazine Focus cited NATO sources in a report that Paris paid the kidnappers of four French journalists freed earlier this month.

Foreign minister says 'about 500' French citizens are fighting in Syria with jihadi groups like that which kidnapped recently-released hostages.

Expert says the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadist group in Syria lacks funding 'so they have to use their hostages'.