Yemen hostage Isabelle Prime arrives back in France
Prime, who worked as a consultant on a World Bank-funded project, was seized with her translator Sherine Makkaoui in February as they were driving to work in the capital Sanaa. Makkaoui, who is Yemeni, was freed in March.
Wearing a dark blue cap and sunglasses, a smiling Prime stepped out of a French government jet and was met by Hollande and Fabius as well as several friends and family members.
She made a brief statement thanking the efforts of the French government in securing her release.
Throughout the ordeal, she said, "I knew I had France behind me."
France made "every effort to achieve this happy outcome", the Hollande statement said on Friday, adding that the presidency "expresses its gratitude to all those who worked on this solution, including Sultan Qaboos Bin Said, Sultan of Oman".
French officials have not divulged many details about her release, including which group had been holding the French national.
"The liberation of Isabelle Prime shows again that France never abandons its own," said Fabius.
Prime, originally from the west of France, arrived in Yemen in 2013.
Video appeal to Hollande
In June she appeared in a 21-second video posted on YouTube by her captors. Dressed in black, she made her appeal to Hollande and Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi in English.
"Please bring me to France fast because I'm really, really tired," she said in the video. "I tried to kill myself several times because I know you will not cooperate and I totally understand."
Francisco Ayala, president of Ayala Consulting, Prime's employer, told AFP late Thursday that he had received news of her release through a telephone call from the French foreign ministry.
He said: "The whole thing was very secret. The government of France never told me or even her father anything (about efforts to secure her release). I guess more news will come later."
Ayala, who spoke via Skype from his firm's base in Ecuador, said he had spoken to Prime's father, who Ayala said was planning to travel to Paris on Friday.
Foreign hostages
A number of foreigners have been taken hostage in Yemen over the past 15 years, mostly by tribesmen as bargaining chips in negotiations with the government. Almost all have been freed unharmed.
But in December, US journalist Luke Somers and South African teacher Pierre Korkie died during a failed attempt by US commandos to rescue them from an al Qaeda hideout in southeastern Yemen.
Prior to Prime's release, the most recent French hostage to be freed was Serge Lazarevic in December last year, after he spent three years in the hands of Islamist militants in Mali.
At the time of his release, Lazarevic was the last of more than a dozen French citizens taken captive in recent years, with those held in Africa reaching a high of 15 last year.
A Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes against Houthi rebels this year after they and troops loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh seized the capital in February.
The war in Yemen has killed nearly 4,000 people, half of them civilians, while 80 percent of the 21 million population needs aid and protection, the UN says.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)
