French former detainees Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris return home after more than 3 years in Iran

PARIS (AP) — French former detainees Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris returned to France Wednesday after more than three years of detention in Iran, following weeks of talks with Tehran.

Kohler, 41, and Paris, 72, left by road on Tuesday, right before a tentative ceasefire between the United States and Iran was announced to halt fighting that has rocked the region since Feb. 28. Their release was hailed as a major diplomatic success by French authorities.

President Emmanuel Macron, who has attempted to distance his country from the Middle East conflict, welcomed them at the Elysee presidential palace.

Arrested on soying charged, they were released from prison in Iran in November. However, the two had been holed up in French diplomatic premises in Tehran as Iranian authorities wouldn't allow them to leave the country. Macron said they were given the green light to make their way back home on Tuesday.

“We realize just how much we ‘narrowly escaped’, so to speak, because it could have been much worse,” Kohler told reporters Wednesday. “It’s been two days that we’ve been under strain, because we traveled by car, then by plane. We haven’t slept for two days,” she said.

Kohler and Paris were driven from Iran to neighboring Azerbaijan, a journey that takes about 9 hours, before taking a flight to Paris, French authorities said. They were accompanied all the way by France's ambassador to Tehran, Pierre Cochard.

Macron's office said their release is the outcome of a “long-term effort," but talks accelerated in recent weeks due to pressure from the Iran war, giving a sense of urgency to the situation.

He said last week the U.S. couldn’t complain about a lack of support from allies after deciding to launch the Iran war without consultation. “This is not our (military) operation,” he told reporters during a visit to South Korea.

The French leader was the first Western head of state to speak on March 8 with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian after the war erupted. Since then, they spoke on the phone twice, on March 15 and March 24.

French authorities also thanked Oman for its mediation role to secure the release of Kohler and Paris.

Omani authorities “made it possible, in the final stretch, to convey a certain number of messages within the Iranian system,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on France 2 national television.

“On Sunday evening, Easter Sunday, I received a call from my counterpart, Iran’s foreign minister, confirming that the decision had been made on their side,” he said.

Barrot said details of negotiations with Iran would remain “confidential.”

However, 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.

Macron’s office denied there was any such agreement about a prisoner swap.

Tehran has been pressing since last year for the release of Esfandiari, who was convicted in France on charges of inciting terrorism over comments she made about the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on Israel.

Esfandiari was sentenced in February to one year in prison with an additional three-year suspended sentence, along with a permanent ban from French territory. She appealed the decision.

She has since been under house arrest, a measure that was lifted on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after it was made public that the two French nationals had left Iran, her lawyer Nabil Boudi told The Associated Press.

Kohler and Paris thanked on Wednesday all those who helped them out of Iran.

Talking to reporters, they called Iran's Evin prison, where many political prisoners and dissidents are held, “hell.”

“We experienced daily horror,” Kohler said.

Paris said they felt “under constant threat” while in detention.

“We had no right to read, no right to write. Whenever we left our cell, we were blindfolded,” he said.

“One of the goals was likely to break us," Paris added. "We are not broken. We will bear witness, we will speak out, and we will enjoy life again.”

The couple was vacationing in Iran when they were arrested in May 2022.

Cecile Kohler, a French national who were freed by Iran with Jacques Paris after three and a half years in detention, speaks to media at the Elysee Palace as they are hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, in Paris, France, April 8, 2026. (Tom Nicholson/Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, centre right, greets Cecile Kohler, a French national who was freed by Iran with Jacques Paris, right, after three and a half years in detention, next to French ambassador to Iran Pierre Cochard at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, April 8, 2026. (Tom Nicholson/Pool Photo via AP)

French President Emmanuel Macron, right, walks with Jacques Paris, second from right, and Cecile Kohler, third from right, French nationals who was freed by Iran with Cecile Kohler after three and a half years in detention, and French ambassador to Iran Pierre Cochard, left, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, April 8, 2026. (Tom Nicholson/Pool Photo via AP)

Jacques Paris, left, and Cecile Kohler, French nationals who were freed by Iran with after three and a half years in detention, walk at the Elysee Palace as they are hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, in Paris, France, April 8, 2026. (Tom Nicholson/Pool Photo via AP)

Jacques Paris, left, and Cecile Kohler, French nationals who were freed by Iran with after three and a half years in detention, speak to media at the Elysee Palace as they are hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron, in Paris, France, April 8, 2026. (Tom Nicholson/Pool Photo via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is expected to meet with President Donald Trump on Wednesday to try to smooth over the president's anger with the military alliance over the Iran war.

Trump had suggested the U.S. may consider leaving the trans-Atlantic alliance after NATO member countries ignored his call to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway, as Iran effectively shut it and sent gas prices soaring.

The Republican president's meeting with Rutte, with whom he had a warm relationship, comes as the U.S. and Iran late Tuesday agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the strait. The nascent ceasefire was struck after Trump said he would strike Iran's power plants and bridges, threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight."

The plan to reopen the strait is still cloudy and is expected to be a central focus of the Wednesday afternoon meeting with Rutte. The White House said the meeting was expected to be behind closed doors. In the Trump administration, though, that can change at the last minute, and meetings can be opened to the press.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio met separately with Rutte on Wednesday morning at the State Department ahead of the White House talks.

In a statement, the State Department said Rubio and Rutte had discussed the war with Iran, along with U.S. efforts to negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war and “increasing coordination and burden shifting with NATO allies.”

Congress in 2023 passed a law that prevents any U.S. president from pulling out of NATO without its approval. Trump has been a longtime critic of NATO and in his first term had suggested he had the authority on his own to leave the alliance, which was founded in 1949 to counter the Cold War threat posed to European security by the Soviet Union.

The crux of the commitment its 32 member countries make is a mutual defense agreement in which an attack on one is considered an attack on them all. The only time it has been activated was in 2001, to support the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Despite that, Trump has complained during his war of choice with Iran that NATO has shown it will not be there for the U.S.

Ahead of the meeting, Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, issued a statement Tuesday night in support of the alliance, noting that, “Following the September 11th attacks, NATO allies sent their young servicemembers to fight and die alongside America’s own in Afghanistan and Iraq.” McConnell, who sits on a committee overseeing defense spending, urged Trump to be “clear and consistent” and said it's not in America's interest to “spend more time nursing grudges with allies who share our interests than deterring adversaries who threaten us.”

If Rutte's meeting does not alleviate Trump's frustrations, it's unclear if the Trump administration would challenge the law barring a president from pulling out of NATO. When the law passed, it was championed by Trump's current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who at the time was a senator from Florida.

The alliance was already rattled over the past year as Trump returned to power and reduced U.S. military support for Ukraine in the war against Russia and threatened to seize Greenland from ally Denmark.

But Trump's badgering of NATO intensified after the Iran war began at the end of February, with the president insisting that securing the Strait of Hormuz was not America's job but the responsibility of countries that depend on the flow of oil through it.

“Go to the strait and just take it,” Trump said last week.

Trump was also angered as NATO allies Spain and France forbade or restricted use of their airspace or joint military facilities for the U.S. in the Iran war. They and other nations, however, agreed to help with an international coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz when the conflict ends.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been a particular source of Trump's frustration, was set to travel on Wednesday to the Gulf to support the ceasefire. The U.K. has been working on developing a post-conflict security plan for the strait, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.

Trump has previously threatened to leave NATO and often said that he would abandon allies who don’t spend enough on their military budgets. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, in his recent memoir, said he feared that Trump might walk away from the alliance in 2018, during his first term as president.

Associated Press writers Matthew Lee in Washington and Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte speaks during the launch of the NATO Secretary General's Annual Report for 2025 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte takes questions from journalists during the launch of the NATO Secretary General's Annual Report for 2025 at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Thursday, March 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters during the White House Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House, Monday, April 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - President Donald Trump meets with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte in the Oval Office of the White House, Oct. 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)