France’s Macron to meet freed Sahel hostage upon arrival home

French President Emmanuel Macron will meet the freed journalist Olivier Dubois at an airport outside Paris where he is scheduled to arrive midday Tuesday, his office said.

Dubois, 48, had been kidnapped in April 2021 in Mali, saying in a video released by his captors that he was taken by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel, which is linked to Al-Qaeda.

He and an American aid worker, 61-year-old Jeffery Woodke who was seized in southwest Niger in October 2016, arrived in the Niger capital of Niamey on Monday after being freed.

“I feel tired, but I’m fine,” Dubois told journalists after his arrival.

In a statement after his release, Macron said he had spoken with Dubois and expressed his “huge relief” at his release.