Lives at risk of French couple jailed by Iran: families

Cecile Kohler, 41, and Jacques Paris, 72, were arrested in May 2022 and have been detained ever since. Their current location is unknown after they were moved from Tehran's Evin prison in the wake of the Israeli strike on the facility in the June war.

They are among a number of Europeans still held by Iran in what several European governments, including France, describe as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking by Tehran to extract concessions from the West.

"The French state is responsible, every day that goes by, for the survival of Cecile and Jacques," Noemie Kohler, Cecile's sister, told reporters.

She said she had spoken to the pair on Tuesday "for eight minutes via video call" under heavy surveillance, with the brief communication still offering no clues over where they were being held.

"It was a distress call," she said.

"They told me they were exhausted," she said, adding the pair are "at the end of their tether".

Cecile Kohler told her sister she could not endure "another three months or even a few weeks of detention".

Anne-Laure Paris, daughter of Jacques Paris, said she wanted to be "the mouthpiece for his exhaustion, his despair, his distress, and his anger".

"My father told me: 'I am staring death in the face,'" she added.

They confirmed that the sentence, initially announced by the Iranian judiciary on Tuesday, amounted to 17 years in prison for Jacques Paris and 20 years for Cecile Kohler.

The families insist they are wholly innocent and were only visiting Iran as tourists.
'Complete mobilisation'
They "were arbitrarily sentenced... to very long prison terms", French foreign ministry spokesman Pascal Confavreux told reporters in Paris.

"The charges... are completely baseless," he added, calling for their "immediate" release.

France had filed a case with the Hague-based International Court of Justice over the couple's detention, saying they were held under a policy that "targets French nationals travelling in or visiting Iran".

But in September, the ICJ suddenly dropped the case at France's request, causing disappointment among the families.

"If there is one thing that we should absolutely not doubt, it is the full and complete mobilisation at all levels of the state to obtain their immediate release," said the French foreign ministry spokesman.

Iran, which has previously carried out exchanges of Westerners for Iranians held by the West, has previously said the couple could be freed as part of a swap deal with France, which would also see the release of Iranian Mahdieh Esfandiari.

Esfandiari was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting terrorism on social media, according to French authorities. She is due to go on trial in Paris from January 13.