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LeMonde
20-07-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
French hostages in Iran are at mercy of regime's bargaining
It was close to noon in Tehran on June 23 when Cécile Kohler heard the first explosion. The sound of a second, then a third, soon followed. The walls of the tiny cell in Evin prison, where the literature teacher has been locked up for three years, shook. Just a few meters away, in the men's section, Jacques Paris, her 72-year-old partner who was arrested with her in May 2022, grew frantic as fellow inmates were wounded by shrapnel and shards of glass. Chaos and panic ensued. The guards gathered the political prisoners from Section 209, tied them together in pairs, and transferred them to Tehran-Bozorg penitentiary in the south of the capital, as Israeli bombs continued to rain down on the city. "I thought I was going to die," Kohler later told the chargé d'affaires at the French embassy in Iran during a consular visit granted a week later on July 1. Since the Israeli strikes, their actual place of detention is unknown. Terrified by the attacks, the 40-year-old woman was barely sleeping. "Every night, she hears explosions," her sister Noémie Kohler said by phone. Are they phantom noises or real gunfire? The family lives in anxiety and uncertainty. After three years in detention, Kohler and Paris were indicted in late June by a revolutionary court for "espionage on behalf of Mossad [Israeli intelligence services]," "plotting to overthrow the government" and "corruption on earth" – charges that carry the death penalty. Is there any hope for release? "We no longer believe in it," sighed Noémie Kohler. The couple has now been joined by Lennart Monterlos, an 18-year-old French-German cyclist, arrested "for an offense," according to Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghtchi in an interview with Le Monde on July 10, without providing further details. A fourth French citizen has recently been arrested in Iran, Le Monde has learned, though neither the Iranian authorities nor Paris has disclosed any information
LeMonde
02-07-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
Louis Arnaud, former French hostage held at Iran's Evin prison: 'It's not only a prison that's been reduced to ashes, but the bastion of resistance'
Not a breath of air rises from the walls of Evin prison, destroyed by the blind fury of Israeli bombs. How could it? There is no water, no infirmary, no administration, no guard post. The large gate, once so feared, has been pulverized and dissolved into thin air. The first two floors of Wing 4, where the political prisoners were held, were blown away by the explosion. The guard post has been destroyed. So has the library, that treasure trove of knowledge patiently accumulated, book by book, over decades of resistance. The works of Plato and Aristotle, the verses of Persian poets, classical literature, swept away, buried under the rubble. Even Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince), the only book in French, the one that had welcomed me like a friend when I emerged from the hell of Section 209, now lies beneath the rubble. Among the dead are some of the worst interrogators, perpetrators of torture and humiliation. They will not be missed. And yet, should we rejoice in their loss? Do they not also leave behind mothers, children, grieving faces? No political prisoner wished for their death. We do not offer them our hatred. We leave them our pity. Trapped in a despised system At the very heart of the impact, the medical staff were struck down. I remember the compassionate gaze of Dr. Mossaheb, the kindness of the nurses, their quiet courage as they passed clandestine news to the families of the disappeared. Many guards died. Often young men, some of whom confided their shame at escorting me before a criminal judge. Boys trapped in a system they despised, with no way out in a ruined economy. And what became of Mr. Ahmadi, the exuberant admissions officer, warm and deeply humane? Is he still alive? Or has his smile, too, been buried in the dust?
