French citizen Louis Arnaud returned to Paris Thursday after being held in Iran since September 2022 and sentenced last year to five years in jail on national security charges.
Emerging from a small plane at Le Bourget airport outside Paris, a visibly tired but smiling Arnaud shook hands with Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne before embracing his parents, according to images aired on television.
Arnaud linked arms with his relatives as they entered a private room at the airport out of view of the cameras.
"I am very glad to welcome one of our hostages who was indeed held arbitrarily in Iran," Sejourne said.
Louis Arnaud est libre !
— Stéphane Séjourné (@steph_sejourne) June 13, 2024
Merci à toutes les équipes du Ministère qui ont permis qu’il retrouve aujourd’hui sa famille après deux années d’incarcération arbitraire en Iran.
Trois de nos compatriotes, Cécile, Jacques et Olivier, sont encore détenus. Ils restent ma priorité. pic.twitter.com/Nf84UHCfRd
Arnaud, a 36-year-old consultant, set off in July 2022 on a round-the-world trip that led him to Iran.
His arrest came amidst protests in 2022 over the death in custody of a woman who was arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress rules for women.
Arnaud's family, who petitioned the UN to push for his release, said that he had not been involved politically and had been careful at the time, and had "kept a distance from the social movements”.
A petition last year calling on his release gathered 100,000 signatures.
Several French detainees
Arnaud is one of four French citizens – Cecile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris, and a man identified only by his first name, Olivier – who had been held by Iran.
French President Emmanuel Macron urged Iran to free three other detained French people “without delay”.
"Tonight, I am thinking also of Cecile, Jacques and Olivier. I call on Iran to release them without delay," Macron said.
In recent years, dozens of dual nationals and foreigners have been arrested, mostly on charges related to espionage and security – Iran does not recognise dual nationality.
France has called the arrests "state hostage taking" and rights groups have accused Iran of arresting people for diplomatic leverage over other countries, a claim that Iran has denied.
(with newswires)
