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Dubois, who disappeared in Mali's northern city of Gao in April
2021, was released on Monday and taken to Niger with U.S. aid
worker Jeffery Woodke, who was also freed after being held six
years.
Dubois, who had appeared in a video last August urging
authorities to do everything they could to free him from
Islamist militants holding him, arrived on Tuesday in a French
presidency jet on the outskirts of the French capital.
"It's huge for me to be here today," Dubois said in Niamey on
Monday, smiling as he answered questions from reporters. "I
wasn't expecting it at all. I feel tired but I'm well."
Dubois was the last French national held by militants in the
Sahel region. French officials have not commented on the
conditions of his release, but thanked Niger for its role in
securing his release.
Kidnappings are a relatively common tactic by Islamist
insurgents linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, which have
gained ground across the Sahel region over the past decade,
killing thousands and uprooting over two million people in the
process.
Those groups have repeatedly declared French citizens in West
Africa to be targets since a 2013 military intervention by
France drove them back a year earlier.
This is partly because of perceptions that the French government
is prepared to pay ransoms to secure their release. France has
repeatedly denied this.
A senior U.S. official told reporters on Monday said there were
no direct negotiations with the militant organisation that held
Woodke, and no ransom or so-called quid pro quo was part of his
release.
(Reporting by John Irish, Editing by William Maclean)
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