France condemned on Wednesday as “entirely baseless” the newly revealed espionage charges Iranian authorities have brought against two of its citizens who have been imprisoned in Iran for more than three years.
Relatives of the couple, Cécile Kohler and her partner Jacques Paris, said that they didn’t know whether the indictments meant they were still alive following a June 23 Israeli airstrike on Iran’s Evin prison, where they reportedly have been held.
The couple, who were in Iran in 2022 on tourist visas, have been formally indicted by the Iranian judiciary for espionage for Israel’s Mossad as well as for plotting to overthrow the regime and corruption, according to AFP, which attributed the information to an unnamed Western diplomatic source and relatives of the detainees.
Neither the couple’s families nor France’s government has received proof of life from the couple since Israel’s June 23 strike. Iranian authorities said following the strike that it had killed some 70 people.
Kohler’s sister told AFP that a judge had presented these three charges during a court session, but added, “We don’t know when exactly they were notified of the charges. They still don’t have access to independent lawyers.”
Tehran has yet to publicly confirm the charges, Reuters reported.
“These charges, if confirmed, are entirely baseless,” a French diplomatic source told AFP. “Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris are innocent. No sentence has been communicated to us and, to our knowledge, none has been pronounced,” the source said, urging Iran to grant the couple access to legal counsel.
A spokesperson for France’s Foreign Ministry said his government demanded the couple’s immediate release. “We have continuously demanded their immediate and unconditional release since their arrest over three years ago,” the spokesperson said, adding that French President Emmanuel Macron and Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot had “reiterated this demand to their Iranian counterparts on multiple occasions, including in recent days.”
“We know nothing about their condition, we don’t know if they’re still alive, we don’t know where they are,” Kohler’s sister, Noémie, told AFP. Her last contact with Cécile was a phone call on May 28, she said.
Kohler, a 40-year-old literature teacher from eastern France, and Paris, a retired 72-year-old math teacher, were arrested on May 7, 2022, on the final day of what was described as a tourist visit to Iran.
On Oct. 6, 2023, they were forced to make confessions on Iranian television. They were “made to confess that they were agents of the French intelligence services,” said Noémie, Kohler’s sister.
Iran is also holding a German citizen identified as Marek Kaufman, who is said to be Jewish and has been under arrest in Iran for more than a year on suspicion of espionage, Iran’s state-run Mehr news agency acknowledged last month.
Kaufman, who was in Iran on a tourist visa, was caught cycling near sensitive military and nuclear sites in the central province of Markazi, the report said, likely referencing Arak.