Five men went on trial in France on Monday charged with holding four French journalists hostage for the Islamic State jihadist group in war-torn Syria more than a decade ago.
IS emerged in 2013 in the chaos that followed the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, slowly gaining ground before declaring a caliphate in large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq.
The jihadists kidnapped a number of foreign journalists and aid workers before US-backed forces eventually defeated the group in 2019.