A French father convicted to 15 years in prison camp in Siberia has recounted his spectacular escape from Russian through a forest border guarded by fierce dogs and snipers to reach Europe.

In what he called a "double humiliation" for Russian FSB secret services, Yoann Barbereau, 39, managed to evade house arrest in Siberia, go into hiding for a year in Moscow, and then make his way across wolf-infested forests to a neighboring Baltic state - despite being on a national wanted list.

The former local head of the Irkoutsk Alliance Française, a cultural centre similar to the British Council, alleges he was the victim of a crude online "kompromat" campaign - an attempt by local security agents to depict him as a paedophile after hacking into his private photos and usurping his identity.

After 14 months in hiding in Russia, he finally managed to escape and return to France this week, where on Friday he accused French diplomats and former president François Hollande of "cowardice" for failing to stand up to Vladimir Putin over the fate of a compatriot on the foreign ministry's payroll.

Mr Barbereau, was the well-known head of the part state-funded Alliance Française in Irkoutsk, where he lived with his Russian wife and their then five-year old daughter.

French former director of the French Alliance in Irkutsk Yoann Barbereau (C) is welcomed by members of his support committee and relatives as he arrives at the Nantes train station on November 9, 2017. credit: LOIC VENANCE/AFP

However, his nightmare began three years ago when he was abducted by ten men and beaten up for unknown reasons.

Then began a smear campaign in which his computer was hacked and family photos of him and his daughter sucking their thumbs, and another of the pair naked in a bathroom placed alongside child porn. These were posted on a website for Russian mothers.

He told reporters on Friday he may have been targeted as a foreigner who was friends with the then local mayor, who opposed Mr Putin's party, at a time of tension over Western sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.

Then director of the French Alliance in Irkutsk Yoann Barbereau delivering a speech during the ceremony for the 10th anniversary of the French Alliance in Irkutsk in 2013 credit: AFP

After what his lawyer called a sham investigation, he was arrested by Russian police in February 2015, imprisoned for 71 days and then interned in a psychiatric ward, where, he told journalists on Friday, he was obliged to pay bribes of around a million rubles (£13,000) to ensure he wasn't "injected with something harmful".

"Yoann was the victim of a plot," his wife Daria Nikolenko told Envoyé Spécial, an investigative programme on French state TV channel France 2, which tried to track down Mr Barbereau before his escape. Ms Nikolenko said she was forced to make false statements after Russian agents threatened to send her to prison and their daughter to an orphanage if she failed to comply.

The wife and daughter managed to travel abroad to London, where they are thought to live.

While awaiting trial, Mr Barbereau managed to evade house arrest by placing tin foil on his electronic bracelet, dropping off his mobile phone in a bus heading for Mongolia, where Russian authorities said they had picked his trail in December last year.

Using a fake identity he then used a car sharing application to travel to Moscow, where he reached the French embassy.

However, he said he received a frosty reception and claimed he was told: "It's too dangerous to hide you."

"I was faced with cowards," he told reporters.

In the end, he says was placed in a hidden room and saw very few people for a year.

Any public campaign will cast doubt on the ministry - the embassy? - for failing to protect one of its agents

Although the French ambassador in Moscow insisted progress was being made on his case, an email published by Envoyé Spécial cites the diplomat as confessing that he had been "taken for a ride" by the Russians.

The ambassador is cited as warning the foreign ministry: "The threat is clear: any public campaign will cast doubt on the ministry - the embassy? - for failing to protect one of its agents."

Convinced French diplomacy would not save him, Mr Barbereau quietly prepared his escape, memorising satellite maps of the border area. Finally, he left the embassy in recent days without informing staff "via a security chink".

Armed with a rucksack, pliers, a penknife, a torch, new telephones and anonymous pin cards, he hooked up with a Russian friend who helped ferry him some of the way "west".

He then spent a nerve-wracking 10 hours crossing thick forest with bears. At one point he came face to face with two wolves. "I wasn't scared as I was so focused on not getting lost," he said.

There were two major threats: fierce dogs and snipers at the Russian border

The most fraught moment was crossing the border area. "I risked my life. There were two major threats: dogs on the Russian side there not there to bark but to neutralise, in other words if they need to rip an arm off, they will. But the worst threat was from Russian snipers."

However, he managed to cross into an unnamed European country where, exhausted, he came across border guards who he asked to take him in.

After an intelligence debrief, he was allowed to return to France, where he was reunited with his family on Thursday.

While he believed that he was caught up in a local issue, he said the "weak" response of French diplomats encouraged the Russians to "play" with his case.

"I think this would have been impossible before Ukraine and the sanctions…the federal authorities would have cleared it up, but instead of that they decided to exploit the affair and have fun with the French," he said.

"The weakness of the French reaction is worrying," he added, saying that it suggested the "extreme dominance" of the Russians in the bilateral relationship.

"It would have been unimaginable five years ago to attack an agent of the French foreign ministry in such an outrageous manner," he said.

His case was raised in May by Emmanuel Macron when the French president met Mr Putin at Versailles. Mr Macron said he had discussed "individual cases" with his Russian counterpart but would not discuss them publicly.

The French foreign ministry on Friday denied being slow to react, saying it had "regularly raised the issued with Russian authorities".

"We always observe the strictest discretion to best protect the rights of our compatriots in difficulty abroad," it said.

Mr Barbereau said he would fight to be "cleared of all convictions and accusations and to regain full freedom of movement". Interpol has issued a Red Notice in his name following a Russian extradition request.

His lawyer, Olivier Arnaud, said he had asked "French diplomacy to acknowledge that it failed to protect a foreign ministry agent and to take measures to compensate Yoann for what he has been through."