PARIS (AP) — Iran has allowed two French former detainees, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, to leave the country, French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday. They had been holed up in French diplomatic premises there since their release from prison in November.
“Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris are free and on route toward French territory, after three and a half years of detention in Iran,” Macron posted on X. They were expected to arrive in France on Wednesday, Macron's office said.
The green light for them to leave Iran, long sought by France, signaled how Iran is differentiating between nations, treating some favorably and others as foes, in the context of the Iran war. Macron has distanced France from the conflict, saying his country wasn’t consulted in advance about the U.S-Israel strikes and didn’t want the war.
Macron thanked Oman for playing a mediation role in the release of Kohler and Paris. “It’s a relief for us all and obviously for their families,” he wrote.
Macron's office said the two French nationals left Iran by road “without any special coordination with the U.S. and Israeli forces” operating in the region, as airstrikes hit two bridges and a train station in Iran Tuesday.
Iran’s state-run agency IRNA reported Tuesday that Iran had reached an agreement with France for the release of both French citizens in exchange for Iranian national Mahdieh Esfandiari. Tehran has been pressing since last year for the release of Esfandiari, who has been convicted in France on charges of inciting terrorism over comments she made about the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.
However, Macron's office denied there was any such agreement about a prisoner swap, stressing that judicial proceedings in France are not over in Esfandiari's case and that she has appealed her conviction. No details about negotiations with Iran were provided.
Macron was the first Western leader to speak to Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian after the outbreak of the Iran war, with a telephone call on March 8. Since then, the leaders spoke again twice on the phone, with Macron urging for the two French nationals to be allowed to return to France as soon as possible.
Iranian authorities freed them from prison in November but didn't let them leave the country. They'd been held for more than three years in detention on spying charges, which Paris said were unfounded.
French officials said they were then being kept safe at the French Embassy in Tehran.
France's Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he talked on the phone with Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris who “expressed their emotion and their joy at soon being reunited with their country and their loved ones,” in a post on X. They “are definitively FREE,” he wrote, expressing gratitude for France's ambassador and staff in Tehran who helped them remain safe “under very difficult conditions.”
Kohler and Paris were arrested in May 2022 while visiting Iran. France denounced their detention as “unjustified and unfounded.”
Western nations have accused Iran of using foreign prisoners as bargaining chips, an allegation Tehran rejects.
In September, Iran’s foreign minister said the two countries were close to a prisoner swap involving Esfandiari.
That same month, France dropped its case before the International Court of Justice against Iran for violating the right to consular protection of Kohler and Paris. France has accused Iran of holding Kohler and Paris arbitrarily, denouncing “a hostage policy.” The ICJ said France requested “the discontinuance of the proceedings.”
A Paris court in February convicted Esfandiari of inciting terrorism, and sentenced her to one year in prison with an additional three-year suspended sentence, along with a permanent ban from French territory. She was released pending appeal, French authorities said.
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AP Writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo, Egypt contributed to the story
FILE - People walk past the portraits of French nationals Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris in front of the French National Assembly in Paris on July 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)
A federal immigration officer shot a Dominican man in the neck as he drove in a car with a 5-year-old boy Thursday afternoon, officials said.
An irate New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage, and spent two hours Thursday night pressing President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the wounded man, and urging them to stop immigration enforcement operations in the city.
Meanwhile, Trump said Thursday that he will not order a resumption of military strikes on Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections in the United States. Trump, while stumping for Republicans this week, has hinted that he was confident an endgame to the war could come in the days before or after the election, while also hinting that he remained open to resuming full-scale military operations against Iran.
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Mullin said ICE agents weren’t aware the child was in the car at the time. But he said Belgal “was aware” and chose to evade officers.
He didn’t answer a question about how officers wouldn’t know that, saying only that it’s an investigation.
Mullin also revealed that the officers involved in the incident were wearing body cameras “and they were on.”
Mullin spent much of the news conference criticizing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani for resisting and denouncing ICE. An irate Mamdani on Thursday night called ICE “rotten to its core” and said he saw no justification for the shooting.
“Well, mayor, if you abolish ICE, who’s going to take criminals off the streets of your own town?” Mullin said Friday. “The mayor speaks with political tone. His words are dangerous and incite hostility. It doesn’t help.”
Marcos Charles, who heads Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s enforcement removal and operations division, said ICE officials attempted to arrest the Dominican man, whom officials have identified as Oscar Belgal, and attempted to use their vehicles to block him in.
Speaking to reporters, Charles said Belgal “refused to exit his vehicle” and accelerated, smashing into two government vehicles and moving toward officers, which prompted officers to fire weapons.
Facing backlash after a federal immigration officer shot a Dominican man in the neck as he drove in a car with a 5-year-old boy in New York on Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin doubled down on the Trump administration’s criticism of so-called sanctuary cities.
There’s no clear definition of sanctuary jurisdictions, but the term is generally applied to state and local governments that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Sanctuary politicians and cities “create an environment for criminal activity to thrive, not for the American citizens to be safe,” Mullin said in a news conference Friday.
For about nine decades, executions in the U.S. have been private affairs, often shrouded in secrecy. The stunning Pentagon announcement Thursday that the first military execution in more than 65 years will be livestreamed could change that.
Allowing the world to watch Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan face the firing squad in December would make it the first public execution since two hangings in the 1930s in Kentucky and Missouri drew crowds.
In 1936, a man who reportedly confessed to the rape and murder of a woman was hanged in front of thousands in Owensboro, Kentucky, while the following year, hundreds watched a man in Missouri be hanged.
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Trump said Thursday that he will not order a resumption of military strikes on Iran before the Nov. 3 midterm elections in the United States.
Trump, while stumping for Republicans this week, has hinted that he was confident that an endgame to the war could come in the days before or after the election, while also hinting that he remained open to resuming full-scale military operations against Iran.
For weeks, Trump has been threatening that a post-midterm election escalation in the seven-month-old war remains a viable option, despite his initial promises to Americans of a military campaign that would last a matter of weeks.
But Trump in a social media post on Thursday said the U.S. “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd.”
Trump added that his team has been “having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
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A federal immigration officer shot a Dominican man in the neck as he drove in a car with a 5-year-old boy Thursday afternoon, officials said. The Department of Homeland Security said it was seeking to arrest the man in a “targeted enforcement operation,” but protesters and local officials decried it as an example of the dangers of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
DHS said in a statement that it was seeking to arrest a “criminal illegal alien” with a grand larceny conviction and a history of other arrests. But an irate New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the shooting an outrage.
The mayor said he had spent two hours Thursday night pressing President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to release the wounded man, to no avail, and urging them to stop immigration enforcement operations in the city. He said that late Thursday night, federal authorities removed the man from the hospital and took him away.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, also a Democrat, said in a statement that she had delivered a similar message to Trump and Mullin by phone.
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President Donald Trump arrives to speak at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani talks during a news conference near the scene of a shooting on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
