The son of Sophie Petronin, a French hostage detained in Mali since December 24, 2016, deplores that "the French state does not want to negotiate" the release of his mother, "an elderly and sick lady" which, according to him, " to find a solution to the suffering ", in a statement Sunday with the AFP.
"We must find a solution to his suffering"
Sébastien Chadaud-Pétronin is "in Bamako to resume contact with all the people involved in this affair," he told AFP. "There are people who have the ability to connect with people who hold my mother," he answered a question about the identity of intermediaries who work for the release of his mother.
But after more than two and a half years of his mother's captivity, "we realized that the French state did not want to negotiate, we also realized that it is an elderly lady who is ill and that we must find a solution. to his suffering, "he adds.
A last video in June 2018
The man had made a trip to the Sahel in early December 2018 and assured on his return to France to have received an "unexpected proposal" of the kidnappers, which would have been rejected by the French government, in an interview at the end of April in the Journal du Dimanche . refusing this offer, and especially refusing to start a discussion - this is the very principle of the negotiation which was rejected - the authorities showed that the only option chosen by the Head of State (French) was military " he had said in this interview.
"I think of Sophie Petronin at the hands of his kidnappers, we do not forget that those who attack a Frenchman must know that our country never abandons his children," declared the head of state on 14 May. Frenchman, Emmanuel Macron, during a national tribute to the Invalides, in Paris, to two French soldiers killed in Burkina Faso to release hostages.
The latest video featuring Sophie Pétronin, a humanitarian doctor abducted in Gao, northern Mali, was received in mid-June 2018. She appeared very tired and her face was emaciated, and was calling on Emmanuel Macron. In another video posted on November 11, when she was not appearing, her captors claimed that her health had deteriorated.