PARIS, France: Two French nationals, who spent more than three years in an Iranian prison on espionage charges, headed home from the war-stricken country on Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron said.
Cecile Kohler, 41, and Jacques Paris, 72, had been under house arrest at the French embassy in Tehran ever since they were freed in November, with their fate even more uncertain after US-Israeli strikes on Iran started on February 28.
“Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris are free and on their way to France, after three and a half years in detention in Iran,” the French president wrote on X.
A French foreign ministry source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the couple left Iran at dawn on Tuesday in a diplomatic convoy with the French ambassador and “are currently in Azerbaijan”.
Kohler and Paris -- both teachers, although Paris is retired -- were arrested in May 2022 at the end of a trip to Iran that their families say was purely touristic in nature.
