From Evin Prison to a splash by means of wartime Iran: How French couple’s four-year ordeal ended | EUROtoday
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The 1,460-day ordeal of lecturers Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris ended early on Wednesday because the French couple landed at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport on a industrial flight from Azerbaijan, 4 years and a day after their arrest in Tehran.
Family members and overseas ministry officers welcomed the couple on the Paris hub, earlier than President Emmanuel Macron greeted them with a heat embrace on the lawns of the Élysée Palace, expressing his “great joy” at their return.
Kohler, 41, and Paris, 72, had been the final of what France refers to as “state hostages” held by Iran – first as detainees in Tehran’s most notorious jail, then holed up in French diplomatic premises.
“For us, this is a fresh start. We’re not broken,” Paris mentioned briefly remarks on the presidential palace, vowing to talk out about their ordeal. “We kept our hopes up right to the end,” added Kohler, saying they’d been subjected to “daily horror” in Tehran’s Evin Prison.
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“This marks the end of a terrible ordeal,” Macron earlier advised a defence cupboard assembly. He thanked Omani mediators for his or her assist in securing a inexperienced mild for his or her switch from Iran on Tuesday – whilst US President Donald doubled down on his threats to destroy Iran and a “whole civilisation”.
The French president’s workplace mentioned the 2 French nationals left Iran by street “without any special coordination with the US and Israeli forces” working within the area, even as air strikes hit two bridges and a prepare station.
It took them eight hours to drive throughout Iran, and an additional 4 hours to cross the border with Azerbaijan, based on French day by day Le Monde, which described “a nerve-wracking wait for embassy staff worried that the process might fall apart at the last minute”.
‘Psychological terror’
The French couple – each lecturers, although Paris is retired – had been arrested in Tehran on May 7, 2022, the final day of a visit to Iran that their households say was for tourism. France denounced their detention as “unjustified and unfounded”.
Read extraFrance condemns Iran over ‘arbitrary’ jail phrases for 2 detained nationals
Western nations commonly accuse Iran of utilizing overseas prisoners as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.
Kohler and Paris had been locked away in a bit of Tehran’s infamous Evin Prison reserved for political prisoners, the place they spent greater than three years “in a state of constant psychological terror”, writes French day by day Le Monde.
“Subjected to solitary confinement in cramped cells, sleeping on the floor under the harsh glare of a neon light shining on their faces twenty-four hours a day, they endured relentless interrogations and repeated threats from their jailers,” the newspaper provides.
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For their family members, the anguish turned to horror in June final yr when Israeli air strikes hit the jail, killing a number of inmates and leaving them with out information of Kohler and Paris for a number of days.
At the tip of a closed-door trial, an Iranian courtroom in October sentenced them to jail on espionage prices their households say had been fabricated. The tribunal jailed Paris for 17 years and Kohler for 20 years for allegedly spying for France and Israel.
Prisoner swap
The first indicators of hope for his or her launch got here in September final yr, three months after the Evin Prison strike, when Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi evoked a potential “prisoner swap”, successfully tying the couple’s destiny to that of an Iranian nationwide held in France on prices of inciting terrorism.
Although French authorities denied discuss of a potential swap, analysts tied Tehran’s overture to a French choice days later to drop proceedings earlier than the International Court of Justice in opposition to Iran for violating the precise to consular safety of Kohler and Paris.
Tehran has been urgent since final yr for the discharge of Mahdieh Esfandiari, who was convicted by a French courtroom in February over feedback she made concerning the Hamas-led October 7 assaults on Israel. Esfandiari was sentenced to a yr in jail and an additional three years suspended, together with a everlasting ban from French territory.
The Iranian nationwide, who’s interesting her conviction, was launched from jail and positioned underneath home arrest final November – a gesture that helped pave the best way for Kohler and Paris’s switch days later from Evin Prison to the French embassy in Tehran on November 5, 2025, the place they remained till France lastly secured a inexperienced mild for their return residence.
Read extra‘Free and on their method to France’: Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris launched by Iran, says Macron
Macron’s workplace has insisted that the 2 circumstances are separate, stressing that judicial proceedings in Esfandiari’s case are usually not over. But a lawyer for the Iranian nationwide has confirmed that her home arrest was lifted simply hours after information emerged that the French couple would depart Iran.
‘Preferential remedy’
French officers have thanked Oman for enjoying a mediation function within the launch of Kohler and Paris. A French overseas ministry supply advised AFP that “what secured their release was the current situation”,including that “if anything dramatic had happened to our compatriots, the reaction would have been fierce”.
Analysts, nonetheless, level to a calculated transfer by Tehran geared toward exacerbating divisions between Washington and its European allies.
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“This release sends a message that Iran will give preferential treatment to the United States’ traditional allies who refuse to work with Trump during the war,” Iran knowledgeable Ross Harrison, a researcher on the Middle East Institute, advised Le Monde.
As it hailed the discharge of Kohler and Paris, the Élysée Palace pointed out that the French president “was the first Western head of state to speak with the Iranian president”, Massoud Pezeshkian, after the conflict started.
Macron has distanced France from the battle, saying his nation was not consulted prematurely concerning the US-Israeli assault that triggered the conflict, and questioning their legality. He has additionally voiced exasperation at US President Donald Trump’s more and more erratic statements, not too long ago telling reporters throughout a visit to South Korea: “When you want to be serious, you don’t say the opposite every day of what you said the day before. And perhaps you shouldn’t talk every day.”
The subsequent day, a French container ship obtained a uncommon inexperienced mild to cross the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran closed off to all vessels linked to the US, Israel and their allies at the beginning of the conflict, paralysing visitors within the strategic waterway and sending international gasoline costs hovering.
Read extraMacron says ‘unrealistic’ to open Hormuz Strait by pressure, urges Trump to ‘be severe’
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20260408-solitary-confinement-air-strikes-french-couple-kohler-paris-return-unbroken-four-year-ordeal