Paris - When French President Nicolas Sarkozy travels to Mexico on Sunday, one of his goals will be to obtain the transfer to France of a 34-year-old French woman convicted of kidnapping there.

"(The aim) of the French government, of the president of the Republic, is clearly to obtain Florence Cassez's transfer to France. There are arrangements which allow for this," government spokesman Luc Chatel told RFI radio.

Arrested three years ago with her Mexican ex-boyfriend, Israel Vallarta, Florence Cassez was sentenced to 96 years in prison, after Vallarta admitted having kidnapped several people and hidden them on his farm.

The sentence was reduced to 60 years on appeal on Tuesday, Mexican authorities announced. Cassez has long claimed not to have known of her former boyfriend's activities as head of a kidnapping gang known as The Zodiacs.

The two were arrested in December 2005 in what Mexican authorities later admitted was a raid staged for television cameras.

Police said the couple were holding three people, including an 11-year-old boy, when police raided their farm, first in a real operation and a second time for live television.

Cassez claimed that she had been arrested the day before the raid, kept sequestered overnight by police and then planted in the farmhouse where her ex-boyfriend lived.

Police said that part of her story was true, but that this did not affect her legal status.

In a telephone statement played on France Info radio on Wednesday, Cassez said she had run out of hope.

"I won't be able to hold out another year in prison," she said. "I'm afraid of falling asleep at night, I'm afraid of waking up in the morning. It's terrible." (dpa)