Today's Date:

My dear compatriots,

Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun have been released. They are in good health and at this moment Florence is in the plane which is bringing her back to Paris.

After a long and painful captivity lasting 157 days, shared by all the French, they are at last returning to their families and loved ones. I want to tell them of our joy and that of the whole of France.

My first thoughts go to Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun's families who, throughout this terrible ordeal, have shown an admirable courage and dignity. And I want especially to salute Florence's parents, Mme Jacqueline Aubenas and M. Benoît Aubenas. After months of battling for their daughter, I can appreciate the happiness they must feel today.

I salute the commitment and spirit of responsibility of the whole of the press, and in the first place of M. Serge July and the whole of the Libération newspaper's editorial team.

I pay tribute to the extraordinary mobilization in France and abroad. It was a magnificent demonstration of solidarity and hope.

At the moment of this happy outcome, I would also like to salute the constant, active and unremitting efforts of Jean-Pierre Raffarin and Michel Barnier.

I should particularly like to include in these thanks all our civilian and military services which have worked tirelessly for this success, in France, in Iraq, and in other countries, doing so under difficult and often dangerous conditions.

My dear compatriots,

At this moment as we come together, our thoughts also go to all those women and men held hostage across the world. I'm thinking particularly of Ingrid Betancourt. And I issue an appeal for their release, in the name of the universal values of freedom, dignity and justice.

Today, in the name of you all, I wish to tell Florence Aubenas and Hussein Hanoun of our joy and that of the nation at the knowledge that they are free and will soon be back home./.