The World - News from Jan. 11, 1987

A French diplomat held hostage by pro-Iranian extremists in Lebanon said his ordeal has been a “nightmare” and called on the Paris government to meet his captors’ demands. “Why is the (French) government being evasive when it perfectly knows the demands of the captors,” said a letter from Marcel Fontaine, 45, who was seized in Beirut in March, 1985. It was addressed to his wife and delivered to a Western news agency in Beirut on Friday. Islamic Jihad (Holy War), which claims it is holding Fontaine, two other Frenchmen and two Americans, has demanded the release of 17 Arabs held in Kuwait for political offenses and an end to French support of Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War.