Comments deemed “worrying” by the Quai d’Orsay. “We have taken note of the statements on Monday” by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani. They “testify to the arbitrary nature” of the detentions of the French, underlined the spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Anne-Claire Legendre, during a press briefing on Tuesday.
The day before, the head of Iranian diplomacy denounced the “non-constructive” attitude of France vis-à-vis Iran and its “interventionism” which do not facilitate discussions on the possible release of the French detained in the country. “Naturally, the continuation of such actions will not help to settle the issue of prisoners,” concluded Nasser Kanani. “I hope that we will see a positive development in this file”, he also said, stressing that “of course, the positions and actions of countries can play a positive role” for this.
Six French still detained
The spokeswoman for the Quai d’Orsay, she recalled the French position: “we demand the immediate freedom of all our nationals detained arbitrarily”. France is one of the countries that most strongly denounced the “repression” of the wave of protests that shook Iran after the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini.
Officially, six French people are detained in Iran: the teacher and trade unionist Cécile Kohler and her companion Jacques Paris, the Franco-Irish Bernard Phelan, Louis Arnaud and Benjamin Brière, as well as another national whose identity has not been made public. The Franco-Iranian researcher Fariba Adelkhah, arrested in June 2019 and then sentenced to five years in prison for undermining national security, was released on February 10.