Paris hopes two French journalists taken hostage by the Taliban a year ago will be freed as soon as possible and got assurances of support from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, France's defence minister said on Monday. Alain Juppe, who met Karzai in Afghanistan over the weekend, told France Info radio that he understood the impatience of the families of the two journalists, Herve Ghesquiere and Stephane Taponier, taken captive on Dec. 29, 2009. According to Reuters, "We need the Afghan authorities' support to make progress towards their liberation and president Karzai assured me that this support existed," Juppe said. "I do not want to fuel false hopes, to say it will be tomorrow or the day after, because I don't know. I hope they will be back as soon as possible and I am confident." Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said on Dec. 21 that the government had received recently recorded video footage of the two journalists who work for the France 3 TV channel and were captured in Kapisa province, northeast of the capital Kabul, along with their Afghan driver and translator.
