DAKAR — A French citizen taken hostage by Islamist rebels last week in southwest Mali said he blamed France's foreign policy for his abduction and urged Paris to respond to his captors' demands, in a video shown on Monday. European leaders are growing increasingly anxious that Mali could turn into a platform for militant attacks, including in Europe. France is the most vocal supporter of military action by an African force against Islamist militants who have taken control of the north of the West African country. Gilberto Rodriguez Leal, 61, was kidnapped on Nov. 20 after crossing into Mali by car from Mauritania, making him the seventh French national in the hands of militant groups in the Sahara desert. The video, published by Mauritanian news website Alakhbar, showed a bespectacled, unshaven man with white hair flanked by two men carrying rifles and wearing beige uniforms. “My name is Rodriguez Leal, Gilberto. I was kidnapped in Diema, between Nioro and Bamako, by MUJWA,” he said, referring to one of the groups controlling northern Mali. “I ask that the French government responds quickly to their demands.”“I am not to blame for this kidnapping, it is the government's foreign actions that are to blame,” he said. — Reuters
