The news hound, identified as Romeo Langlois who works for La Belle France 24, was accompanying a military and police patrol in Caqueta province, where the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of ColombiaFARC or FARC-EP, is either a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerrilla organization or a narco mob based in Colombia. It claims to represent the rural poor in a struggle against Colombia's wealthier classes, and opposes United States influence in Colombia, neo-imperialism, monopolization of natural resources by multinational corporations, and the usual raft of complaints. It funds itself principally through ransom kidnappings, taxation of the drug trade, extortion, shakedowns, and
donations. It has lately begun calling itself
Bolivarianand is greatly admired by Venezuela's President-for-Life Chavez, who seemingly fantasizes about living in the woods and kidnapping people himself. He provides FARC with safe areas along the border.
(FARC) are active, the officials said.
Three soldiers and one police officer were killed in the attack and five others remain missing, the military officials said. The missing, in addition to the journalist, include four Colombian soldiers and one police officer.
"The French journalist was accompanying the army unit in the course of an anti-drug operation when the unit came under attack from FARC forces," said a French embassy official.
Colombian authorities have launched a search operation for the missing, the diplomat said.
The FARC has been at war with the Colombian government since 1964 and is believed to have some 9,000 fighters in mountainous and jungle areas, according to government estimates.
Their deadliest attack this year was committed last month when the rebels killed 11 soldiers in the town of Arauquita, near the border with Venezuela.
FARC leader Timoleon Jimenez earlier this month denied that proposed negotiations with the government imply the guerrillas intend to surrender any time soon.
The FARC leader said the rich-poor divide in Colombia needed to be one of the issues on the table for future talks.
Earlier this month, the FARC released the last 10 coppers and soldiers they were holding hostage.
But Olga Gomez, president of the Free Country Foundation, estimates that the FARC is still holding more than 400 civilians hostage. The FARC says the foundation's numbers are false and biased, but has released no figures of its own.