France is stepping up efforts to secure the release of two more of its citizens in Iran after Tehran freed a French man imprisoned for more than 880 days.
News that Olivier Grondeau, arrested in Iran in October 2022 and sentenced to five years on charges of spying, had returned to France was announced by Emmanuel Macron. Macron gave no details of the negotiations leading to his release, though it came on Nowruz, the Persian new year, when Iran has released prisoners in the past.
Agence France-Presse reported that another French national who had been under house arrest for several months was also released this week. No further details have been given on the person’s identity.
France and the rest of Europe are trying to pursue negotiations with Tehran over the country’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
French diplomats are now working to persuade Iran to release Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, arrested at Tehran airport in May 2022 as they waited to fly back from a 14-day holiday. They have also been accused of spying and are being held in the capital’s notorious Evin prison, which holds westerners, dual nationals and political prisoners often used by Tehran as bargaining chips in negotiations with the west.
Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s minister for Europe and foreign affairs, posted on social media: “We will tirelessly continue our efforts to ensure that all our compatriots still held hostage, including Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, are in turn released.”
Grondeau’s parents, Thérèse and Alain, speaking about the moment they learned of his release, said they felt “huge relief that finally it was happening after years of waiting.
“We are happy to be reunited with our son. This is a great moment of joy. However, our thoughts at the moment are also with Cécile and Jacques … and their families.”
Grondeau, who will turn 35 next week, was sporting a Britney Spears T-shirt as he stepped from the plane on Monday to be met by his family and senior officials at Paris-Beauvais airport . Grondeau’s family said they had sent the T-shirt as a gift. “He loves Britney. But who doesn’t?” they said.
Grondeau’s detention began in the chaotic aftermath of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died after being detained for not wearing Iran’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of authorities. UN investigators later said Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to her death, which sparked months of protests and a bloody security force crackdown in the country.
Grondeau waived his anonymity and went public over his detention in January when he alluded to the politics at play in his imprisonment. “You become a human who has been stocked away indefinitely because one government is seeking to exert pressure on another,” he said.
In a phone call aired by the French broadcaster France 2 in January, he added: “Most of the questions were: ‘Did you take part in a demonstration?’ ‘List all of the Iranians that you met during your trip’, ‘Why did you come to Iran?’ ‘You’re not a tourist’. One day you think you’re going to be freed very quickly, the next you think you’ll die here.”
He described lights being shone on prisoners day and night, as well as being blindfolded each time he was taken out of his cell while in solitary confinement for 72 days. He later shared a cell with more than a dozen prisoners.
Asked if he had been ill-treated, he said: “If you look for bruises on my body you won’t find any, because they are not that stupid.”
A close friend of Grondeau’s, Tristan Bultiauw, said learning of his release was “a surreal moment”, adding: “One day you’re organising rallies to call for his release, meeting politicians, struggling with all the interviews … and then you hear that he’s released. It still feels like a dream.”
Bultiauw was looking forward to seeing his friend soon and hoped to fly from Castres in the south of France to Paris to celebrate his birthday with him next week. “We want to give him space but knowing Olivier, if he wants a big birthday party, we will all join in,” Bultiauw said. “He also got a new haircut and looks like a Viking. I love it.”
The Iranian government did not immediately acknowledge Grondeau’s release. Releases of westerners in Iran typically happen as part of negotiations requiring something in return. Earlier this week, a foreign ministry spokesperson said France had arrested an Iranian woman who supported Palestinians and that Tehran was still trying to gather more details about her case.
Tensions between Iran and France, Germany and the UK have recently heightened. Last week, Tehran summoned the ambassadors from the countries to a dressing down over their closed-door talks with the US about the Iranian nuclear programme. A statement from Iran’s foreign ministry said the meeting lacked “any technical or legal justification” and accused the countries of an “irresponsible and provocative approach”.
The US president, Donald Trump, has sent a letter to Iran’s 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to jump-start nuclear talks. Trump is also putting pressure on Tehran over its support for Yemen’s Houthi rebels, after the US military launched an intense new campaign of airstrikes targeting the group.
