08-02-2025
Thousands rally in Paris against Iran's leaders
Several thousand Iranians came from across Europe to rally in Paris 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 Radjavi, 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.
"The Iranian region 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 videolink.
Several speakers at Saturday's rally voiced hopes that newly elected 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 Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic republic's supreme leader 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, Radjavi 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".
The throng in Paris 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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