Tears, smiles as Betancourt returns

France provides a hero's welcome for freed captive

Ingrid Betancourt (right) was greeted yesterday near Paris by President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy. "France is my home and you are my family," Betancourt said. (GERARD CERLES/AFP/Getty Images)

PARIS - Arriving to a hero's welcome in France, Ingrid Betancourt said yesterday that she cried a lot during her six years as a prisoner in the Colombian jungle. Today, she said, "I cry with joy."

President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife met the French-Colombian politician on the tarmac of an air base southwest of Paris, showering her with hugs, kisses, and smiles.

Betancourt, 46, became a cause celebre in France after her abduction in 2002 while campaigning for Colombia's presidency. During her captivity by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, supporters in France held candlelight vigils and benefit concerts to attract world attention to her plight.

Her release in an ingenious Colombian military operation Wednesday was greeted here with a flood of enthusiasm. Hundreds of people, some waving Colombian or French flags, many with cameras, lined up yesterday behind police barriers around the Elysee presidential palace in Paris in hopes of catching a glimpse of her.

A video taken during the rescue shows the hostages filing grim-faced toward the helicopter that would fly them to safety, then hugging one another and crying with joy after they are aloft and realize they are free.

In the tape presented yesterday at Colombia's military headquarters, the hostages' hands are bound for what they believe is a flight to another rebel camp. It was shot by military intelligence agents who tricked rebels into thinking they were handing over the hostages under FARC orders.

"France is my home and you are my family," Betancourt said yesterday in an address from the wind-swept runway broadcast live on French television.

Addressing the French people, she said their support and mobilization in her favor "saved my life."

"I have cried a lot during this time from pain and indignation. Today, I cry with joy," she said, her voice choked and eyes moist.

Sarkozy praised Betancourt as a beacon of hope for people in dire situations.

"All those, like you, who suffer throughout the world should know that . . . there is a light at the end of the tunnel," said the French leader, flanked by his wife, former model Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, and Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.

Speaking later at a reception in a gilded hall at the presidential palace, Betancourt urged Sarkozy to keep fighting for the liberation of the hostages still in the FARC's hands, estimated by Colombia's government to number about 700.

"I'm sorry to ask you this like this, in public," she told Sarkozy as a crowd of hundreds cheered and cameras flashed. "But we still need you.

"We cannot leave them [the hostages] where they are. They are suffering, they are alone."

The rescue mission - in which 15 hostages were spirited to freedom without a shot being fired - was a major victory in the Colombian government's fight against the FARC, and Betancourt appealed to the rebels to "be good losers."

Asked about a Swiss radio report that a ransom was paid to the rebels for freeing her and the other hostages and that the release was staged, Betancourt said she couldn't doubt the authenticity of what she lived through.

She described the memory of her defeated captor, "this man hunched on the ground, eyes blindfolded, hands behind his back, hands and feet tied. I don't think someone who had received a ransom could have had such an expression."

Senior Colombian military officials also denied a ransom was paid.

Betancourt said she would undergo medical exams today. She had a preliminary medical exam aboard the French government plane that flew her to Paris, but because she went through ill spells during her captivity, she said she wanted a thorough checkup.