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France says two citizens arrested in Iran, demands they be freed immediately

Iranians walk in a market in Tehran

France said on Thursday that two of its citizens have been arrested in Iran and demanded they be freed immediately.

“The French government condemns this baseless arrest. It calls for the immediate release of these two French nationals,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Iran’s intelligence ministry said on Wednesday that it had arrested two Europeans for allegedly fomenting “insecurity” there, but it had not revealed their nationalities.

Christophe Lalande, federal secretary of France’s FNEC FP-FO education union, told Reuters earlier on Thursday he suspected that one of his staffers and her husband, missing on a holiday in Iran, were the two arrested.

While there was no “absolute certainty,” there was a “strong presumption” that it was her, Lalande said of his colleague, whom he named as Cecile Kohler. She was the union’s international representative, he said.

The two arrested were accused of “organizing chaos and social disorder aimed at destabilizing [Iran]” in conjunction with foreign intelligence services, Iranian state TV on Wednesday cited Iran’s intelligence ministry as saying.

The arrests coincided with a visit to Tehran by the European Union’s Iran nuclear talks coordinator Enrique Mora, who held talks with his Iranian counterpart Ali Bagheri Kani, according to Iranian media.

Two other French nationals are held in Iran on national security charges their lawyers say are politically motivated.

Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests. Iran has repeatedly dismissed the charge.

Western powers have long demanded that Tehran free their citizens, who they say are political prisoners.

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