Cameraman Stephane Taponier and reporter Herve Ghesquiere stepped smiling onto the tarmac at Villacoublay military airport, southwest of the French capital, shortly after 9:00 am (0700 GMT).

They embraced waiting relatives and shook hands with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, captured on televised images broadcast from a remote end of the runway where they disembarked.

The journalists, who work for state network France 3, were freed along with their Afghan interpreter Reza Din on Wednesday, the French government said, in circumstances that remained unclear.

The two Frenchmen had become the longest-held Western hostages in Afghanistan.

The abduction was claimed by the Taliban, the hardline Islamist group that ruled Afghanistan until a US-led invasion in 2001, now in revolt against the Kabul government. The guerrillas accused the journalists of spying.

In January, Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden threatened France in an audio tape message and said that the journalists' release would depend on France withdrawing soldiers from Afghanistan.

Bin Laden was killed in a US commando raid in Pakistan in May, and Sarkozy announced last week that "several hundred" French troops would be withdrawn from Afghanistan before the end of the year in line with US pullouts.

There was no immediate word, however, on why the kidnappers had decided to release the men and whether France had many any concessions.

Foreign Minister Alain Juppe insisted that France does not pay ransoms for hostages.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011