Iraqi insurgents set free 2 French reporters

French President Jacques Chirac summed up the nation's "joy" that reporters Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were on their way to France, via a stopover in Cyprus, and stressed: "They have gone through a very tough ordeal."

The pair, kidnapped south of Baghdad on August 20 and released Tuesday by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq, left Iraq early Wednesday and were expected to arrive at a military airbase outside Paris around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), to be greeted personally by Chirac.

Jubilation swept France, where a feeling of solidarity and constant campaigns kept the journalists' plight in the public eye throughout their detention.

"The nightmare is over, we are going to be able to resume a normal life," Malbrunot's 70-year-old mother, Andree, told AFP at her home in central France.

"We're going to have a happy Christmas."

Christian Chesnot's brother Thierry said: "This is a huge relief. It's a wonderful Christmas present."

The Islamic Army in Iraq said it released the journalists because of France's stand against the US-led invasion of Iraq and the pair's support for Palestinian statehood, according to a statement given to Al-Jazeera television.

It had also been proved they were not spying for US forces in Iraq, it added.

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin told political leaders Wednesday that his government did not pay a ransom for the journalists.

"He was very clear. We can consider this to be the word of the prime minister," the leader of the French Communist Party in the senate, Nicole Borvo, told media after the meeting.