The two left Iran on Tuesday and were received in France on Wednesday, after traveling via Azerbaijan, with President Emmanuel Macron saying their return marked the end of a “terrible ordeal.”
Kohler, 41, and Paris, 72, were arrested in May 2022 during a tourist trip to Iran and later accused of espionage and other national-security offenses, charges France said were unfounded.
They were held in Tehran’s Evin prison before being moved in November 2025 to the French embassy in Tehran under a form of house arrest that still left them unable to leave the country.
Macron’s office said the two left Iran by road “without any special coordination with the US and Israeli forces” operating in the region.
Their release appears to have come out of a broader understanding between Paris and Tehran, though both sides have publicly avoided describing it as a straightforward swap.
Iran’s official IRNA news agency said the two were freed under an understanding that France would in turn release Mahdieh Esfandiari, an Iranian student living in Lyon, and that France had earlier withdrawn its complaint against Iran at the International Court of Justice.
Reuters reported that Esfandiari, convicted in France in late February for glorifying terrorism in social media posts, had already been released after serving nearly a year and was appealing the conviction.
Le Monde, citing diplomatic and expert sources, reported that Esfandiari’s case had become tied in practice to the fate of the French pair: after she was released under judicial supervision in October 2025, Iran allowed Kohler and Paris to leave prison for the French embassy, but their full departure from Iran came only after Esfandiari’s house arrest in France was lifted.
There is also evidence of other concessions already on the table. The ICJ case France had filed against Iran over the detention of Kohler and Paris was formally removed from the court’s list in September 2025 at France’s request.
Reuters reported that French officials declined to spell out the full terms that secured the pair’s departure, while Le Monde said no explicit bargaining was publicly acknowledged by Paris even though the sequence of events pointed to a negotiated quid pro quo.
The timing has fueled debate in France over whether geopolitics also played a role.
Reuters wrote that the release came as Paris sought to distance itself from the US-Israeli war effort, while Le Monde quoted analysts who described the move as a calculated Iranian gesture toward France at a moment when Macron had criticized Washington’s approach and France had resisted force-based measures around the Strait of Hormuz.
Reuters reported that the release came as Paris was trying to put some distance between itself and the US-Israeli war effort, while Le Monde cited analysts who saw it as a calculated Iranian signal to France at a time when Macron had openly criticized Washington’s approach and Paris had opposed using force around the Strait of Hormuz.
French officials deny softening their position toward Tehran. But the case fits a broader pattern in which Iran has been accused by Western governments and rights advocates of using detained foreigners or dual nationals as leverage in disputes with other states.
France itself has repeatedly described Kohler and Paris as “state hostages,” a phrase that reflects that view, even as Iran rejects the accusation.
