FRANCE:INGRID BETANCOURT'S first words when she arrived in France yesterday were in defence of her host, President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Mr Sarkozy's erstwhile rival, Ségolène Royal, ended the flawless idyll of the return of the Franco-Colombian hostage by saying: "Everyone knows that this well-executed Colombian operation proves that negotiations with the Farc [guerrillas] were useless and fruitless. Any controversy or political gain would be totally out of place, because Nicolas Sarkozy had absolutely nothing to do with her liberation."
In just two days of freedom, Ms Betancourt has shown herself to be a consumate politician. "When I take President Sarkozy by the hand, when I kiss him, when I look at him, I see through him all of France, all of you who shared the same hope, who saved my life," she said moments after arriving yesterday. Take that, Ségolène Royal she might have added.
Ms Betancourt reiterated that without pressure from Mr Sarkozy, the Colombian president might have attempted a "blood and fire" rescue like those of 2003 and 2007 that left 21 hostages dead.
Ms Betancourt also discounted a Swiss radio report that claimed her freedom and that of 14 other hostages was purchased for $20 million, that the entire operation was a charade to cover up the ransome. She described the joy of her liberators when they knew they had succeeded, and the terror and shame of Commandante Enrique, one of her tormentors, as he lay bound on the floor of the helicopter. "There were moments of such intensity that they prolong themselves into eternity," she said.
She laughed at a report on French television that she might become France's minister for ecology. "If you ask me what my plans are, it's to change the world, the world that doesn't work the way it should." She has "unfinished business" - to achieve the freedom of some 3,000 hostages still held in Colombia. For this, she intends to join Luis Eladio Perez, a Colombian parliamentarian with whom she was held hostage until he was freed in February.
Ms Betancourt's Catholic faith was strengthened by her long captivity. Asked how she survived so long, she said she found strength in prayer and God. "God was my recourse. And my father and mother taught me to hold my head high, even at difficult times." Ms Betancourt has told how she was chained - often by the neck to a tree - 24 hours a day for three years. "The seduction of suicide was always with us," she said.
Her education in France taught her "dignity and courage", and tales of her father-in-law's five-year captivity by Nazis in the second World War left a deep mark. "You always tell yourself that if others can hold out, I can too." Even the photograph of an emaciated, infinitely sad Betancourt last year was an act of defiance. Her captors wanted her to record a video appeal, but she refused.
"They dragged me around like a package for six years . . . I wanted the image to convey my rejection of what I was living through."