Two French journalists freed from a four-month hostage ordeal in Iraq finally found total freedom on Thursday, after being held for a day following their return home to be debriefed by France’s DSGE intelligence service.The debriefing was the final step for Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, before going home for Christmas with their families. The two were freed in Baghdad on Tuesday and returned to a heroes’ welcome in Paris the next day. Debate raged over a failed freelance attempt to free them. Critics rounded on conservative deputy Didier Julia for his mediation attempt, to which he replied that Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was ‘‘totally useless’’.‘‘I’m not going to waste my time with polemics like this. They deserve contempt,’’ said Barnier, echoing the condemnation Malbrunot fired off at Julia and his associate Philippe Brett just after their return. ‘‘They played with the lives of two people.They interrupted our efforts and caused the breakdown of negotiations which had almost succeeded on September 28-29,’’ said Barnier. ‘‘The time will come when we will have to ask questions and get answers.’’Le Figaro reporter Malbrunot, 41, and Chesnot, 37, who works for Radio France Internationale, looked healthy but thinner than before and said they were not mistreated. The men and their Syrian driver were seized on August 20 as they drove to Najaf from Baghdad, by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq. It demanded France repeal a ban on Muslim headscarves in state schools, but Paris rejected the demand.Julia, the deputy at the centre of the storm, faces expulsion from Chirac’s ruling UMP party over his role in the failed rescue mission. Brett, a little-known businessman with political contacts in France and Iraq, remains abroad.Chesnot told France Info radio after the debriefing that he never saw Brett —as the businessman had claimed — and that the captors were clearly annoyed by the confusion he caused. ‘Chesnot also said he and Malbrunot were held at a farm south of Baghdad at the same time as other hostages, including Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni, who was killed on August 26, but they had not seen him. They only learned of his death weeks later. Their captors believed Baldoni was an intelligence agent, he said, while they confirmed by internet that the two French were journalists. —Reuters
