The 46-year-old, who was freed last week, has been given a clean bill of health.

Ms Betancourt, who was running for president in Colombia when she was kidnapped in 2002, told Le Journal du Dimanche: 'I shall return to Colombia in a few days. Meanwhile I want to see France, all of France.

'But I also...want to give this time to my family, to the father of my children...who fought an extraordinary fight for me.'

Asked whether she would write about her experience, the French-Colombian citizen replied: 'I'll write a play.'

But she shied away from a question about whether she would run for the presidency again, saying: 'I think there are other means to serve my country and perhaps in a more effective way.'

Snatched from the grip of Marxist Farc rebels in a Colombian army operation last Wednesday along with three US hostages and 11 Colombians, Ms Betancourt arrived in France two days later on board a French presidential plane from Bogota.

She spoke of her jailer, whom she called Commander Enrique and described as a man 'of special cruelty'.

CNN quoted fellow former hostage Luis Eladio Perez as saying the captives were kept in atrocious conditions, with little more than rice to eat, sleeping in mud and chained by the neck for several years.

And it quoted Ms Betancourt as telling Europe-1 Radio: 'When you have a chain around your neck, you have to keep your head down and try to accept your fate without succumbing entirely to humiliation.'

But the tables were turned when disguised Colombian army intelligence officers tricked the rebels into thinking they were preparing for a possible prisoner swop.

The hostages were all put aboard a helicopter and once airborne, Ms Betancourt's jailer was overpowered. And bound hand and foot and prostrate, Commander Enrique 'was humiliated', she said.

Meanwhile, Colombia says it has found explosives set to be used in bombs across the capital in reprisal for the rescue operation.

The army seized about a tonne of explosives at a farm outside Bogota, said officials, who asked not to be named.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS