PARIS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0C\u00e9cile Kohler and Jacques Paris returned to France on Wednesday after more than three years of detention in Iran, following weeks of talks with Tehran.<\/p>\n
Kohler, 41, and Paris, 72, left by road on Tuesday, right before a tentative ceasefire between the United States and Iran was announced to halt fighting that has rocked the region since Feb. 28. Their release was hailed as a major diplomatic success by French authorities. <\/p>\n
President Emmanuel Macron, who has attempted to distance his country from the Middle East conflict, welcomed them at the Elysee presidential palace.<\/p>\n
Arrested on suspicion of spying, they were released from prison in Iran in November. However, the two had been holed up in French diplomatic premises in Tehran as Iranian authorities wouldn\u2019t allow them to leave the country. Macron said they were given the green light to make their way back home on Tuesday. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe realize just how much we \u2018narrowly escaped,\u2019 so to speak, because it could have been much worse,\u201d Kohler told reporters Wednesday. \u201cIt\u2019s been two days that we\u2019ve been under strain, because we traveled by car, then by plane. We haven\u2019t slept for two days,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Kohler and Paris were driven from Iran to neighboring Azerbaijan, a journey that takes about 9 hours, before taking a flight to Paris, French authorities said. They were accompanied all the way by France\u2019s ambassador to Tehran, Pierre Cochard. <\/p>\n
Macron\u2019s office said their release is the outcome of a \u201clong-term effort,\u201d but talks accelerated in recent weeks due to pressure from the Iran war, giving a sense of urgency to the situation.<\/p>\n
He said last week the U.S. couldn\u2019t complain about a lack of support from allies after deciding to launch the Iran war without consultation. \u201cThis is not our [military] operation,\u201d he told reporters during a visit to South Korea.<\/p>\n
The French leader was the first Western head of state to speak on March 8 with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian after the war erupted. Since then, they spoke on the phone twice, on March 15 and March 24.<\/p>\n
French authorities also thanked Oman for its mediation role to secure the release of Kohler and Paris.<\/p>\n
Omani authorities \u201cmade it possible, in the final stretch, to convey a certain number of messages within the Iranian system,\u201d French Foreign Minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot said on France 2 national television. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn Sunday evening, Easter Sunday, I received a call from my counterpart, Iran\u2019s foreign minister, confirming that the decision had been made on their side,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Iran claims a prisoner swap in return for the release of the 2 French citizens<\/p>\n
Barrot said details of negotiations with Iran would remain \u201cconfidential.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, Iran\u2019s state-run agency IRNA reported Tuesday that Iran had reached an agreement with France for the release of both French citizens in exchange for Iranian national Mahdieh Esfandiari. <\/p>\n
Macron\u2019s office denied there was any such agreement about a prisoner swap.<\/p>\n
Tehran has been pressing since last year for the release of Esfandiari, who was convicted in France on charges of inciting terrorism over comments she made about the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. <\/p>\n
Esfandiari was sentenced in February to one year in prison with an additional three-year suspended sentence, along with a permanent ban from French territory. She appealed the decision. <\/p>\n
She has since been under house arrest, a measure that was lifted on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after it was made public that the two French nationals had left Iran, her lawyer Nabil Boudi told the Associated Press. <\/p>\n
Kohler and Paris share details about their Iranian prison ordeal<\/p>\n
Kohler and Paris thanked on Wednesday all those who helped them out of Iran. <\/p>\n
Talking to reporters, they called Iran\u2019s Evin prison, where many political prisoners and dissidents are held, \u201chell.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe experienced daily horror,\u201d Kohler said. <\/p>\n
Paris said they felt \u201cunder constant threat\u201d while in detention. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no right to read, no right to write. Whenever we left our cell, we were blindfolded,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the goals was likely to break us,\u201d Paris added. \u201cWe are not broken. We will bear witness, we will speak out, and we will enjoy life again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple was vacationing in Iran when they were arrested in May 2022. <\/p>\n
Corbet writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0C\u00e9cile Kohler and Jacques Paris returned to France on Wednesday after more than three years of detention in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3694,3254,5,3690,50,3296,561,3691,3246,3687,3692,3292,3689,3693,3688],"class_list":{"0":"post-3866","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-agreement","9":"tag-cecile-kohler","10":"tag-france","11":"tag-french-authority","12":"tag-iran","13":"tag-jacques-paris","14":"tag-macron","15":"tag-march","16":"tag-prison","17":"tag-release","18":"tag-reporter-wednesday","19":"tag-tehran","20":"tag-tuesday","21":"tag-week","22":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}