PARIS: Two French nationals held in Iran are on their way back home, President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday, following their release in November after more than three years in prison on espionage charges. &quot;Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris are free and on their way to France, after three and a half years in detention in Iran,&quot; the French president wrote on X. A source at the French foreign ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the couple left Iran Tuesday at dawn in a diplomatic convoy with the French ambassador and &quot;are currently in Azerbaijan&quot;. Kohler, 41, and Paris, 72, were arrested in May 2022 at the end of a trip to Iran that their families say was purely touristic in nature. They were freed from Tehran&#39;s Evin prison in November after more than three years in jail on espionage charges their families say were fabricated, but the pair had been waiting to leave the country. Their fate had seemed even more uncertain after US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February that killed the country&rsquo;s Supreme Leader. Both teachers &ndash; although Paris is retired &ndash; they were among a number of Europeans caught up in what activists and some Western governments including France describe as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking by Iran to extract concessions from the West. They left after US President Donald Trump on Monday warned that all of Iran could be &quot;taken out&quot; late Tuesday at the expiry of a deadline he issued for the Middle Eastern nation to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz.

A pedestrian walks past portrait placards of Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, two French citizens formerly detained in Iran, set up on a fence of the French National Assembly, in Paris on March 11, 2026. (AFP)

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Two French nationals, Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, freed from Iranian prison on espionage charges, are returning home via Azerbaijan, President Macron said, following more than three years in detention.

French pair held in Iran 'free and on their way to France': Macron

MOSCOW: Russia on Monday ordered a diplomat at the British embassy in Moscow to leave the country over allegations he was working as a spy, Russia&#39;s FSB security service reported. Moscow and London have expelled multiple embassy staff over the last decade, both trading accusations of espionage. Expulsions from one side have typically been followed by a tit-for-tat response from the other. The diplomat, whom the FSB named as 29-year-old embassy secretary Albertus Gerhardus Janse Van Rensburg, was expelled for engaging in &quot;subversive intelligence activities that threaten Russia&#39;s security&quot;, the FSB said. &quot;A decision was made to strip Janse Van Rensburg of his accreditation, and he was ordered to leave Russia within two weeks,&quot; it added. The Russian foreign ministry said it had summoned Britain&#39;s charge d&#39;affaires over the incident and warned the United Kingdom not to retaliate. Relations between London and Moscow, currently at a low point over the Ukraine war, have been strained by spying allegations for decades. In 2006, former FSB officer and Russian defector Alexander Litvinenko was killed in London, poisoned by polonium in what British investigators said was a hit by the Russian secret service. In 2018, the UK said Russian double agent Sergei Skripal was poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent in the British cathedral city of Salisbury. One member of the public was killed after handling the delivery device, a discarded perfume bottle, triggering the largest Western expulsion of Russian diplomats alleged to be spies in decades. The UK has, however, refuted Russia&#39;s claim. UK calls Russia claims of spying &#39;complete nonsense&#39;Britain on Monday accused Russia of an &quot;aggressive and co-ordinated campaign of harassment&quot; after a British diplomat was expelled from Moscow over allegations he was working as a spy. &quot;The accusations made today by Russia against our diplomats are complete nonsense,&quot; a foreign ministry spokesperson said, adding Russia was &quot;pumping out malicious and completely baseless accusations about their work&quot;.

Russia ordered a British embassy diplomat to leave within two weeks, accusing him of espionage. The move deepens already fraught UK-Russia ties, marked by years of mutual expulsions, spying allegations and tensions heightened further by the war in Ukraine.

Articles tagged with "Espionage"

French pair held in Iran 'free and on their way to France': Macron

Russia expels UK diplomat on spying allegations