Updated

Four French journalists kidnapped and held for 10 months in Syria have returned home to France.

The joyful families of the four, Edouard Elias, Didier Francois, Nicolas Henin and Pierre Torres, were greeted by President Francois Hollande in an informal welcome ceremony Sunday morning. Hollande saluted their arrival as a "moment of joy .. and pride" for France.

The four arrived by helicopter at Villacoublay military airport outside Paris after a first touchdown at a military base in nearby Evreux where they arrived in a special plane that brought them from a town near the Turkish border where the journalists were released early Saturday.