The two French people arrested in May in Iran, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, and whose Iranian television broadcast this Thursday “confessions” of espionage, are “state hostages,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs denounced on Thursday.
The two French “have been arbitrarily detained in Iran since May 2022 and, as such, are state hostages,” declared the French Foreign Ministry, which calls for their immediate release.
The Quai d’Orsay also denounced Iran’s dissemination of its espionage “confessions” as “unworthy, disgusting, unacceptable and contrary to international law.”
His “alleged confessions extracted under duress are baseless, as are the reasons given for his arbitrary arrest,” the ministry adds.
“We hold the Iranian authorities responsible for their fate and treatment, as for all French citizens arbitrarily detained in Iran at this time,” he said.
The website of the Iranian official television’s al-Alam Arabic channel broadcast what it claims was a spy “confession” on Thursday of two French people arrested in May in Iran. In a video montage, a French-speaking woman claims to be Cécile Kohler and to be an operational intelligence officer with the DGSE, the French foreign intelligence service.
Iran had announced on May 11 the arrest of two Europeans “He entered the country with the aim of unleashing chaos and destabilizing society.” The French authorities had denounced his arrest “unfounded” and called for the “immediate release” of him. Tehran then accused two “French trade unionists” arrested in May of “undermining the security” of the country in early July.
A French union source had identified them as Cécile Kohler, leader of the Fnec FP-FO teachers’ union, and her husband Jacques Paris. She specified that they were sightseeing in Iran during the Easter holidays at the time of her arrest.
In the recording released Thursday, the woman claims that she and her husband were in Iran “to prepare the conditions for the revolution and the overthrow of the Iranian Islamic regime.”
It was, according to his statements, to finance strikes and demonstrations and even to use weapons “to fight against the police.” According to the man in the video, who also speaks French, the DGSE’s goals “were to put pressure on the government” of Iran.
Source: BFM TV
