Iran releases French citizen imprisoned for more than 880 days

The Guardian

20-03-2025

A French citizen imprisoned in Iran for more than 880 days has been freed, as France and the rest of Europe try to pursue negotiations with Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear programme.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, wrote online that Olivier Grondeau had been freed, but offered no immediate details of what led to the release, though it came on Nowruz, the Persian new year, when Iran has released prisoners in the past.
Jean-Noël Barrot, France's minister for Europe and foreign affairs, posted a picture online of Grondeau smiling aboard what appeared to be a private jet. 'We will tirelessly continue our efforts to ensure that all our compatriots still held hostage, including Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, are in turn released,' Barrot wrote.
Macron also raised their cases. 'Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris must be freed from Iranian jails,' he wrote. 'All my thoughts are with them and their families on this day.'
The US president, Donald Trump, has sent a letter to Iran's 85-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to jumpstart nuclear talks. Trump is also pressuring Tehran over its support for Yemen's Houthi rebels, after the US military launched an intense new campaign of airstrikes targeting the group.
In going public with his detention in January, Grondeau alluded to the politics at play in his imprisonment. 'You become a human who has been stocked away indefinitely because one government is seeking to exert pressure on another,' he said.
The Iranian government did not immediately acknowledge Grondeau's release. Such releases of westerners in Iran typically come in exchange for something. Earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said France had arrested an Iranian woman who supported Palestinians, but said Tehran was still trying to gather more details about her case.
On Grondeau's lap in the image from the private jet was a plastic-wrapped T-shirt bearing a picture of the pop star Britney Spears, something officials did not acknowledge in welcoming Grondeau's release. He put it on before getting off the plane and embracing his family on returning home, in footage aired by French broadcaster TF1.
France's foreign minister was also there. 'Bravo for your courage,' he told Grondeau.
His mother had described the former youth Scrabble champion as a fan of Beyoncé and karaoke in interviews with French media after he and his family went public with his detention in January.
Grondeau was detained by Iranian authorities in October 2022 in the city of Shiraz.
Though the exact details of what lead to Iran's arrest of Grondeau remain unclear, his detention began in the chaotic aftermath of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died after being detained over not wearing Iran's mandatory headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of authorities. UN investigators later said Iran was responsible for the 'physical violence' that led to her death, which sparked months of protests and a bloody security force crackdown in the country.
'Most of the questions were, 'Did you take part in a demonstration,' 'List all of the Iranians that you met during your trip,' 'Why did you come to Iran?' 'You're not a tourist,'' Grondeau said in a phone call aired with French broadcaster France 2 in January. 'One day you think you're going to be freed very quickly, the next you think you'll die here,' he added.
He described lights being shined on prisoners day and night, as well as being blindfolded each time he was taken out of his cell while in solitary confinement for 72 days. He later shared a cell with over a dozen prisoners.
Asked if he had suffered ill treatment, he said: 'If you look for bruises on my body you won't find any, because they are not that stupid.'
An Iranian court later sentenced the backpacker and world traveller to five years in prison on espionage charges that he, his family and the French government vigorously denied.
He had been held at Tehran's notorious Evin prison, which holds westerners, dual nationals and political prisoners often used by Tehran as bargaining chips in negotiations with the west.