“I am innocent. Everyone here knows I’m innocent. » Olivier Grondeau decided to come out of silence and anonymity this Monday after more than two years of detention in Iran. The 34-year-old Frenchman who was on a tourist trip was sentenced to five years in prison for “espionage and conspiracy against the Islamic Republic”. These accusations are based on nothing according to his family and everyone familiar with the case. France considers that Olivier Grondeau is “a state hostage” like Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, the two other French people imprisoned in Iran since 2022.
The globe-trotting poetry lover, who has visited 90 countries around the world, finds himself the victim of a hybrid war led by Iran, which needs to invent external enemies and plots for internal political reasons . Olivier Grondeau confides his “exhaustion” in a telephone recording broadcast this Monday on France Inter. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot, denounced arbitrary detentions “in undignified conditions which, for some, amount to torture”.
Hostages bargaining chip
France recently decided to raise its voice to denounce this hostage diplomacy and the use of prisoners as bargaining chips in state-to-state negotiations. Iran released an Italian journalist last week. In return, Tehran obtained the release and repatriation of an Iranian wanted by the United States who had been arrested in Italy. A German woman with dual nationality was also released after four years of detention.
France has decided to put pressure on Tehran by making the release of the hostages a prerequisite before considering an improvement in bilateral relations and discussing the conditions for a possible lifting of sanctions against Iran. Discussions with France, Germany and the United Kingdom, which resumed this Monday in Geneva, are being held in a tense climate at a time when Western countries are concerned about the progress of the Iranian nuclear program.
Iran close to acquiring nuclear weapons
The regime has significantly increased its stockpile of enriched uranium, as well as the number of centrifuges. Iran will soon be able to acquire nuclear weapons. European countries continue to hope for a diplomatic solution while the United States or Israel could decide to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. One of the unknowns lies in the room for maneuver that the mullahs’ regime will leave to reformist President Massoud Pezeshkian, whose election was a timid sign of openness.
The Iranian economy is in a catastrophic situation with hyperinflation and an impoverishing middle class, against a backdrop of growing divorce between society and the clerics who rule the country. Iran therefore has a vital need for sanctions relief and economic reforms which will be conditional on the successful conclusion of negotiations on its nuclear program. The fate of the hostages is another sensitive subject that France will weigh in its dialogue with Tehran.
