A French aid worker captured by the Taliban over a month ago was released today, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said.
Taliban spokesman Qari Mohammad Yousuf said Eric Damfreville of Terre d'Enfance agency, an organisation helping children in southwestern Afghanistan, was freed as a gesture to new French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"The Taliban Shura (leadership council) decided to free him for the newly elected French president ... had said in his utterances that France will deliberate over withdrawing French troops from Afghanistan," Yousuf told Reuters by phone from an undisclosed location.
Sarkozy said in April he saw no long-term presence for French troops in Afghanistan.
"It was certainly useful that we sent (the troops) in the context of the war against terrorism, but the long-term presence of French troops in that part of the world does not seem to me to be decisive," he said.
France has some 1,100 troops in Afghanistan after withdrawing some 200 elite forces, which had operated under US command, earlier this year.