France’s Foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot on Thursday denounced the spy charges against two French nationals imprisoned in Iran for three years.
Cécile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris were accused of spying for Israel, conspiring to overthrow the regime and “corruption on Earth.”
Barrot said France had not been formally notified by the Iranian authorities of the charges against the two French citizens.
Kohler, 40, and her partner Paris, 72, were arrested in May 2022 during a trip to Iran. Until last month, they were detained at the Evin Prison in Tehran.
French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday night called Iran’s detention of Kohler and Paris a “provocation”, an “affront” and an “unacceptable choice of aggression”, and said he intented to speak with Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian.