Gabriel Attal, government spokesperson, October 7, 2020 in Paris.
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AFP
After four years of captivity in Mali, is Sophie Pétronin, the last French hostage in the world, about to be released?
On the Elysée side, we do not comment.
"I will be careful not to have anything to say in this context, in hours and days which can sometimes be crucial (...) I do not want to interfere in this situation", explained this Wednesday the spokesman of the government Gabriel Attal during of the minutes of the Council of Ministers.
A hundred jihadists released from prison
Since the first hopes of her release on Monday, the French authorities have remained silent on the subject of the septuagenarian kidnapped at the end of 2016 in Mali.
Gabriel Attal invoked reasons of caution: “It is a subject, like all hostage questions, extremely sensitive, and for which, often, a lot of things must be played out in the greatest discretion.
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The Bordelaise Sophie Pétronin was kidnapped on December 24, 2016 by armed men in Gao (northern Mali), where she had headed a children's aid organization for years.
She is believed to have been retained, along with Soumaïla Cissé, former minister, presidential candidate and opposition leader in Mali, by armed Islamist groups linked to Al-Qaida.
More than a hundred jihadists have been released from prison in Mali since this weekend to obtain the release of the hostages.
Sophie Pétronin's son, Sébastien Chadaud, who arrived in Bamako on Tuesday, remains without news of his mother.
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