Emmanuel Macron launched a direct warning to Iran on Thursday: if the Iranian authorities maintain the new spy charges for Mossad against Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, Paris will take “retaliatory measures”. “The answer will not be long in coming,” warned the French president, denouncing a “provocation with regard to France” and an “unacceptable choice of aggressiveness”. The head of state also said that he intended to mention this subject with his Iranian counterpart, Massoud Pezeshkian.
The two French people, arrested in May 2022 at the end of a tourist stay, are now formally accused by Tehran of “espionage for mossad”, “conspiracy against the regime” and “corruption on earth” – a particularly serious accusation in Iranian justice, liable to the death penalty. So far, the Iranian authorities have been content to evoke facts of espionage, without specifying its nature or the target.
Pressure levers with international sanctions
These new accusations were revealed on Western diplomatic source on Wednesday and the entourage of the two detainees. They caused an uproar in Paris, where the executive denounces political instrumentalization. “I could simply say that it is fanciful if it was not a criminal,” tackled Emmanuel Macron.
Our file on Iran
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, also recalled that France had pressure levers, especially in the field of international sanctions. “We have always said it to our interlocutors of the Iranian regime: the question of possible decisions on sanctions will be conditioned on the settlement of this major dispute,” he said.
