Iranian security forces in front of the French embassy in Tehran, October 21, 2025. ATTA KENARE/AFP
The dinner was marked by tears, but also had a light and joyful tone. Just hours after being extracted from Evin prison in Tehran, two French hostages, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, enjoyed their first moments of semi-freedom on Tuesday, November 4, inside the French embassy in Tehran, where they remain confined.
Released on bail, according to Iranian authorities, the 41-year-old literature teacher and her partner, a 72-year-old retired teacher, are both accused of espionage by Iran. They remain barred from leaving the country after three and a half years in detention. "We haven't reached the end of the road yet, but their lives have already changed," said the spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry on Wednesday.
Despite spending 1,277 days imprisoned in conditions described as torture by the families' lawyers, "they held strong," said Pierre Cochard, the French ambassador to Iran, speaking to RTL radio in the morning. He said that French authorities were "organizing" to ensure the two nationals could return to France "as soon as possible." Would it be a matter of days, months or years? Noémie Kohler, Cécile's sister, reached by Le Monde, "wants to believe" she could hug her sister by Christmas. "But we're trying not to cling to a date. The disappointment would be too painful," she said. The French Foreign Ministry remains vague about the couple's prospects for repatriation, but said it was relentlessly continuing its "behind-the-scenes work."
