Totally Frenched Out

From the blogger formerly known as Samdebretagne

Thursday, July 3, 2008

I was going to post today about how my friends were *this close* to getting scammed by someone on Craig's list but didn't thanks to Leesa's post...but I'm going to save that for tomorrow now.

The big news today is that Ingrid Betancourt has finally been rescued after six years and four months of captivity (along with three American hostages). I'm not sure how much her ordeal has been talked about elsewhere in the world, but here in France, it's been a pretty big deal. Her family has long fought to keep her on the radar, to keep her name in the media, to continue pushing the government to do something.

Ingrid has dual French-Columbian citizenship, and she was campaigning for the Colombian presidency when she was abducted by the Farc. Her children and some of her family live in Paris though. I can't even imagine what a relief this must be for them - there hadn't been any communication from her for quite some time now. I'd been thinking that the probability of her still being alive after all this time was slim - I mean, what were they going to do, keep her forever?

Anyways, if you want, you can read more about it here (in French) or here (in English).

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5 Comments:

Blogger Pauline in France said...

I was listening to the radio in my car when I first heard and almost crashed. I had tears in my eyes. This woman has been one of my heros for a while: Exceptional, brave, a real inspiration.

If you are interested there is a clip in 'daily motion' of the speech she gave shortly after her release. I was astounded that after so many years in captivity
that she was able to give such a coherent and intelligent speech. Amazing.

Really the best news I've heared since along time.

July 3, 2008 at 9:58 AM  
Blogger Starman said...

I got a feed from CBS in the US and they were pretty big on it also.

July 3, 2008 at 1:25 PM  
Blogger shannon said...

My brother was apparently watching CNN most of last night, and he heard nothing about it. In fact, I didn't know until I was catching up on some blogs, and someone had posted about it. Then, I hopped over to the CNN website and read about it. It seems like it's being talked about more online than on actual news programs, but I haven't really sat down to watch anything other than a quick glance at CNN and MSNBC (neither were talking about the story).

I might just be very oblivious, which very well could be the case, but I had never heard much about the story until I came to France. Since one of the other assistants was Colombian, she was constantly asked about the situation by the French. She's the one who finally explained the entire situation to me.

July 3, 2008 at 5:26 PM  
Blogger parisiannewyorker said...

I'm glad Ingrid Betancourt is free, but I bet Sarko is really pissed that he couldn't take any credit for it.

July 3, 2008 at 6:34 PM  
Blogger islandgirl4ever2 said...

It really brought tears to my eyes when I hear the news that she was liberated.. I can't imagine what she endured over all those years and esp. not being able to see her family and then also missing out on all of those years... I am sooo happy she is out of there, safe and with her family! She is a very courageous woman!!

July 4, 2008 at 8:45 PM  

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