WANA (Jul 20) – France’s foreign minister has claimed that two staff members of the French Embassy in Tehran were detained and questioned by Iranian authorities for several hours, calling the incident a violation of their diplomatic immunity.

 

According to media reports, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Monday that the two embassy employees were subjected to what he described as an “extremely serious act of intimidation” on Sunday.

 

Barrot alleged that the two diplomats were detained and questioned “without any reason,” and that one of them was physically mistreated before they were eventually allowed to return to the French Embassy. He added that both employees are expected to leave Iran for France within the next few hours.

 

The French foreign minister also claimed that the two staff members were responsible for implementing France’s programs supporting civil society, particularly Iranian artists and researchers, making the incident “even more shocking” from Paris’s perspective.

 

Barrot further claimed that he raised the issue with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, warning that what he described as a “very serious and unacceptable violation” of France’s diplomatic immunity “cannot go without consequences.”