Iran on Wednesday accused the French secret services of being behind the Iranian women’s uprising which has upset the established order in the Islamic Republic for two months. These accusations come after the reception of four Iranian women by Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace but also after Iran’s choice to support Russia in Ukraine or the “lack of cooperation” displayed by Tehran in the nuclear agreement. Between “false statements”, “little Satan” and ideal scapegoat, 20 minutes takes stock of the renewed tension between France and Iran.
What’s going on in Iran?
Iran has been the scene of protests since the death two months ago of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurd who was arrested for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code that requires women to wear the Islamic veil in public. And since the start of the demonstrations, the authorities have been repeating the same discourse: the demonstrators are “rioters”, instrumentalized by foreign powers. Among which, the United States, sworn enemy of Iran, but also (and especially since a few weeks) France.
On Wednesday, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said several French intelligence agents had been arrested. “Some have played an important role. There are elements of the French intelligence services which will be treated in accordance with the law, ”said the minister on Iranian public television. A law that provides for the death penalty for “espionage”.
These accusations come in a context of accelerated death sentences for anti-regime protesters. According to the agency of the Judicial Authority Mizan Online, justice imposed on Wednesday the death penalty to three new people charged for their involvement in the uprisings, bringing to five the number of death sentences since Sunday.
What is France’s reaction?
French diplomacy immediately rejected via a press release “false statements”. As for the French Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna, she had declared on Saturday that seven French nationals were currently detained in Iran, “arbitrarily”. The minister then also denounced what she calls hostage diplomacy.
For his part, Emmanuel Macron castigated Wednesday a “growing aggressiveness of Iran” towards France by “inadmissible hostage-taking”. Speaking at a press conference at the end of the G20 summit in Indonesia, the French president also called on Iran “to respect regional stability”. “France has always respected the leaders, the Iranian people. We have always been in an approach of discussion, of respect. I think that the choices that have been made in recent months do not go in this direction on the side of Iran. So I call for a return to calm, respect for regional stability, also respect for French nationals, ”added Emmanuel Macron.
Monday, on France Inter, Emmanuel Macron had already declared to be “favorable” to “a strong diplomatic reaction” against Iran. “We are not ruling out any option,” he added, recalling that the Iranian regime was already subject to numerous sanctions from the European Union. Sanctions that affected 126 people, including Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, and 11 institutions.
When did relations between France and Iran cool down?
At the beginning of October. At that time, French diplomacy denounced, through a press release from the Quai d’Orsay, “practices worthy of the show trials of the worst dictatorial regimes” after the broadcast of a video featuring ” [les] alleged confessions” of spying by a couple of French nationals, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, arrested last May and “arbitrarily detained” in Iran. She is a French teacher in a college in Yvelines and he is retired.
However, it should be noted that France has long been Iran’s “little Satan”, according to Ayatollah Khomeini [le « grand Satan » étant les Etats-Unis]. It thus has the largest number of nationals imprisoned in Iranian jails, seven “hostages”. The oldest is Fariba Adelkhah, an anthropologist detained since 2019, recalled France Inter this Thursday morning.
But if Paris is today the ideal scapegoat for Tehran, it is also because France also plays a crucial role in the new world order reshaped by the nuclear race. In 2015, Iran signed the agreement with the United States, the EU, Russia and China which provided for the end of the Iranian military program. Lack of luck, Donald Trump sent this agreement to waltz in 2018. Sanctions resumed, the Iranian nuclear program too and, today, Tehran also supplies drones to Russia.
And while French officials recently assured that Iran was at the “nuclear threshold”, i.e. on the verge of building its bomb, the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) adopted this Thursday in A new resolution will come calling the Islamic Republic to order for its lack of cooperation. This is the second resolution this year, after that of June. The reason for discord is the same: the absence of “technically credible” answers concerning traces of enriched uranium found on three undeclared sites.
For lack of progress in recent months, Washington, London and Berlin have decided to step up the pressure. Paris too. And Emmanuel Macron even more firmly, this Thursday, at the G20
To this, let us add that the president hailed “the courage and legitimacy” of “this revolution of Iranian women and youth” on Friday, after the reception of dissident women at the Elysée. “These women and young people defend our values, our universal principles, […] equality between women and men, the dignity of every human being”, assured Emmanuel Macron. Statements deemed “shameful” by Tehran which today sees in Paris, its foreign agent, its ideal culprit found everything.