PERPIGNAN.

PERPIGNAN, France (AFP) ??” sum of two units French journalists taken hostage in Iraq are no longer in the hands of their abductors, French improvement and Communications Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres said.

"We know that they are alive and no longer in the hands of the abductors who had held them," he told journalists in Perpignan, southern France.

The minister added however that "our sum of two units compatriots are not in out and out security with French forces."

The French media was abuzz Thursday with speculation about the fate of the journalists