AFP - A French aid worker kidnapped a month ago in the Afghan capital Kabul has been released, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Wednesday.
  
Dany Egreteau, 32, was seized by three armed men as he walked through a residential district of Kabul on November 3. An Afghan who tried to stop the abduction was shot dead.
  
"I am happy to learn of the release of Dany Egreteau who was kidnapped a month ago in Afghanistan," Sarkozy said during a visit to Compiegne, north of Paris. He did not elaborate.
  
The Frenchman, who worked for an NGO specialising in education programmes, was on his first mission in Afghanistan and had been in the country for a week.
  
French authorities last week had received a video showing Egreteau with guns pointed at him, as he explained that he was unable to move and forced to wear a blindfold most of the time.
  
There has been a series of kidnappings in the capital, mostly by criminal gangs seeking thousands of dollars in ransom, and three expatriates were shot dead in attacks last month.
  
Afghanistan has seen record levels of violence this year as the hardline Islamist Taliban step up their campaign to overthrow the Western-backed Afghan government.