Thousands rally in Paris against Iran's leaders
Several thousand Iranians came from across Europe to rally in Paris on Saturday, calling on world leaders to put greater pressure on the Islamic republic's ruling clerics.
"Instead of appeasing the mullahs, (the international community) should stand side by side with the Iranian people," Maryam Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), told the rally.
The NCRI is the political wing of the People's Mujahedin of Iran, which Tehran regards as a "terrorist" group.
Iran's opposition abroad has been emboldened by the fall in late 2024 of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a longtime ally of Tehran.
"As Syria did with Bashar al-Assad, the Iranian people will free themselves of the mullahs, and it will be in 2025," said Belgium's former prime minister Guy Verhofstadt.
"The strategy of complacency has to change", he argued, adding: "I don't think it's going to happen that way with the US administration this time".
"The Iranian regime will fall like the Syrian regime fell, at a speed that no one would have predicted," former Syrian rebel leader Riad al-Asaad told the crowd by video link.
Several speakers at Saturday's rally voiced hopes that US President Donald Trump's promise to exert "maximum pressure" against Tehran would help their cause.
Trump has in the past lashed out at Tehran's nuclear programme, but has also expressed a desire to reach a peace deal with Iran.
On Friday, the Islamic republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned against negotiations with the United States.
"You should not negotiate with such a government, it is unwise, it is not intelligent, it is not honourable to negotiate," Khamenei told a meeting of military top brass.
In Paris, Rajavi told the rally that the Iranian government's "cascade of failures" had "pitted the regime's internal factions against each other over the question of whether or not to negotiate with the United States".
Police put the turnout at the Paris demonstration at around 6,000.
The throng was decked out in the flags of the NCRI, a lion holding a sword against a green, white and red backdrop, with a sprinkling of a few Ukrainian flags here and there.
"Many of the weapons which are killing our children in Ukraine come from Iran," said Lara, a Ukrainian living in the German town of Kassel who was bussed into the French capital by the NCRI.
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