PARIS: A first charter flight carrying French nationals stranded in the Middle East since the start of the war with Iran landed at Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris early Wednesday.
Governments and airlines have been scrambling to repatriate tens of thousands of travelers stranded after the eruption of a regional conflict sparked by US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
France is among the most affected Western nations, with an estimated 400,000 nationals present in around 15 countries touched by the conflict.
The aircraft chartered by Air France left Muscat, the capital of Oman, Tuesday evening and landed in France shortly before 3:00 am Wednesday.
“We never thought this would happen,” said passenger Emmy Coutelier, 18.
When the first strikes hit Dubai, she was in the hotel swimming pool with her boyfriend.
After hugging her sister, who had come to meet her at the airport, a still-shaken Coutelier recounted her experience. “An alarm sounded in the middle of the night telling us not to stay near the windows,” she said.
“We went down to the basement,” she added. When Coutelier boarded the repatriation flight, she said she felt as if she were “fleeing danger, even though it’s a relatively safe country.”
The plane carried staff of the airline as well as many families, young children, and pregnant women, government minister Eleonore Caroit told reporters at the airport.
“It was a complex process, with constant uncertainty because we are in a very fluid situation, with airspace opening and closing and the situation changing from hour to hour,” Caroit added.
Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told broadcaster France 2 there would be several flights on Wednesday, including one to repatriate French nationals from the United Arab Emirates.
Another flight, out of Egypt, will bring back “some of our most vulnerable compatriots” from Israel, he said.
More French nationals are getting in contact with consular authorities, “but not all of them want to return to France,” said Caroit.