President Emmanuel Macron welcomed two French nationals who returned to Paris on Wednesday after spending almost four years detained in Iran on espionage charges, with the French leader hailing “the end of a terrible ordeal”.
Cécile Kohler, 41, and Jacques Paris, 72, arrived on a commercial flight, landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris shortly before 9 am and were met on the tarmac by foreign ministry officials.
Macron later greeted the pair in the gardens of the Élysée Palace.
The pair had been under house arrest at the French embassy in Tehran ever since being freed after three years in prison in November, with their fate even more uncertain after US-Israeli strikes on Iran started on 28 February.
“This marks the end of a terrible ordeal lasting three and a half years,” Macron said at a meeting of top defence and security officials earlier on Wednesday.
“We are absolutely delighted that they have arrived on French soil,” he said, once again thanking Oman for its mediation efforts.
Officials and their supporters celebrated the return.
Marie Zandonella, a childhood friend of Kohler’s, said their release came as “a huge relief for everyone.”
“We know the family very well and the whole ordeal has been incredibly difficult,” she said.
The pair left Iran early on Tuesday in a diplomatic convoy with the French ambassador and arrived in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku later in the day.
Double cause for satisfaction
They departed after US President Donald Trump on Monday warned of widespread strikes on civilian infrastructure once a deadline he issued for Iran to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz had expired.
Trump said later on Tuesday he was suspending the bombing of Iran for two weeks.
An Iranian diplomatic source welcomed the news.
“The ceasefire announced in Iran and the return of the two French nationals is a double cause for satisfaction,” the source said.
A source close to French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said that “what secured their release was the current situation.”
“If anything dramatic had happened to our compatriots, the reaction would have been fierce,” the source added.
Kohler and Paris, both teachers although Paris is retired, were arrested in May 2022 at the end of a trip to Iran that their families say was for tourism.
At the end of a closed-door trial, an Iranian court in October sentenced them to jail on espionage charges their families say were fabricated.
The tribunal jailed Paris for 17 years and Kohler for 20 years for allegedly spying for France and Israel.
They were released from Tehran’s Evin prison the following month.
The pair were among a number of Europeans caught up in what activists and some Western governments describe as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking by Iran to extract concessions from the West.
Tehran had earlier suggested that Iranian national Mahdieh Esfandiari could be exchanged for Kohler and Paris.
Esfandiari was sentenced by a French court in February to one year in prison for justifying terrorism over comments she made on social media, including on the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.
Additional sources • AFP
