PARIS — Four Frenchmen held hostage by Al Qaeda militants landed in France on Wednesday after three years in captivity in the punishing African Sahel.
The wife and daughters of one hostage, Daniel Larribe, rushed to hug him, and the three held each other while crying. Other friends and family snapped photos of their loved ones finally home.
President Francois Hollande greeted each of the hostages on the tarmac at a military airport outside Paris.
At the time of their capture, the four — Pierre Legrand, Thierry Dol, Marc Feret, and Larribe — were working in Arlit, Niger, where the French state-controlled nuclear giant Areva operates a uranium mine. They were retrieved in northern Mali on Tuesday.
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Both countries are in the Sahel, the arid region that stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea just south of the Sahara Desert that is prowled by militants from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
The former hostages spent their first night of freedom in Niger’s capital, Niamey, and left for Paris early Wednesday morning. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian had flown to Niger to pick them up. Fabius joked that some of the men slept on the floor of their rooms, finding the mattresses too soft after their ordeal.
Francoise Larribe told reporters how her husband survived the detention. Francoise herself was captured along with her husband and the other three but was released more than a year ago.
‘‘I think Daniel on his part had a desire to resist, and he did it in a completely formidable way,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s like what we used to say to each other when we were in captivity together: every day is a victory.’’
Amid the immense joy of the homecoming, Hollande recalled that there are still seven French citizens being held hostage, three in Africa and four in Syria.
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There were also questions about why the men were taken captive in the first place and whether a ransom was paid to secure their release.