Ingrid Betancourt, more precisely known under the name of Ingrid Betancourt Pulecio was born in Bogota, in Columbia on 25th December 1961. She was the daughter of the Minister of Education, Gabriel Betancourt under the dictatorship rule of General Rojas Pinilla, later diplomat in Paris and of Yollanda Puleico from the Comlumbia Department of Cundimarca who later became senator. Ingrid de Betancourt spent most of her childhood in France where she studied at the Institut d''etudes politiques de Paris, where she met Dominique de Villepin who was teaching there and later became her friend. She married a French citizen, Fabrice Delloye in 1981 and obtained the French Citizenship. From this marriage she gave birth to two children, one of them, Melanie who fought for the freedom of her mother. In 1990 she divorced her husband, went back to Columbia and joined the Ministry of Finance in Bogota. In 1994, she was elected parliamentarian and in 1998, she created her own party under the name of "Oxigeno Verde" and then got elected as senetor the same year.With the presidential elections approaching soon, she wanted to stand as candidate but was kidnapped by the FARC on 23rd February 2002 near Florencia in the company of her friend Clara Rojas who is none other than her campaign manager.