PARIS (AFP) — French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy joined thousands of people in a solemn march in Paris to press for the release of ailing French-Colombian hostage Ingrid Betancourt.
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also took part alongside Argentina's visiting President Cristina Kirchner, who has backed France's efforts to secure the release of the former Colombia presidential candidate from FARC rebels.
France, Switzerland and Spain Wednesday sent a joint medical mission to help the 46-year-old Betancourt, rumoured to be seriously ill after six years in captivity. Paris said Saturday the mission would stay put in Bogota until the guerrillas give a response on granting it access.
"People ask if we are going to give up this humanitarian mission. We will never give up," Kouchner told demonstrators from the steps of the Paris opera, where a banner was unfurled reading "Free Ingrid Now".
Similar marches were being held Sunday in some 20 other French cities in support of Betancourt, whose children Lorenzo and Melanie Delloye have led a high-profile campaign to highlight her plight in France.
In Paris, many of the participants wore white t-shirts and armbands.
A French Falcon 50 airplane has been on standby at a military airport in Bogota since Thursday, waiting to carry the international medical team to treat Betancourt should her captors allow it.
Betancourt is being held at an unknown location in the southeast of the country by rebels of the Revolutional Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). According to Colombian reports and witness accounts, she has been refusing food and medical care from the FARC from the past five weeks.
Bogota has agreed to suspend military operations against the FARC to allow the deployment of the medical team, if it informs it exactly where it is headed.
But the FARC reiterated Thursday in a statement that no hostages would be released without a prisoner swap.
Betancourt is among 39 high-profile hostages, including three US defence contractors, who FARC wants exchanged for 500 rebels held in prison.
The Marxist guerrilla movement, which has been fighting the Colombian government for more than 40 years, is believed to be holding more than 700 people hostage in the jungles of the Latin American state.
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