Over the years France has grown painfully accustomed to seeing its countrymen taken hostage abroad. So it was to much relief that on October 29th four French hostages, kidnapped in Niger three years ago while working at a French-owned uranium mine and then held in Mali, were freed and arrived safely home. But the good news was short-lived. Just four days later, two more French citizens, both journalists working for rfi, France's public world-service radio, were seized in northern Mali by armed gunmen, driven into the desert and shot dead.
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