Visiting lecturer, Paris School of International Affairs (PSIA)
Tehran has seized on protests by French high school students to accuse Paris of repression, seeking to obscure its own treatment of young Iranians by turning the language of human rights against one of its Western critics.
On October 6, Iran summoned French ambassador Pierre Cochard over the crackdown on high school demonstrations in France. The following day, Paris summoned Iran’s ambassador, accusing Iranian authorities of spreading disinformation through official Foreign Ministry accounts.
The diplomatic exchange reveals how the Islamic Republic appropriates the language of rights while denying those rights at home. It is also a struggle over the meaning of protest and who can claim to defend it.
Tehran seeks to reposition itself as an accuser, turning scrutiny away from its own security apparatus and toward a government that has condemned Iranian repression.
Internationally, Tehran seeks to weaken the authority of European criticism. Domestically, the diplomatic spat offers supporters reassurance that Western governments also face rejection. Neither objective requires solidarity with the students themselves; both require their images and grievances to be repurposed in defense of the regime.
This tactic has precedent. During the Yellow Vest movement, Ali Khamenei condemned French police violence, while a small group of regime supporters gathered outside the French embassy in Tehran.
Some wore yellow vests and placed candles and photographs of injured French protesters outside the embassy. Their placards denounced police violence but also carried an explicitly ideological message: “If only the French people had an Imam Khomeini!”
A statement read at the gathering invoked France’s reception of Khomeini at Neauphle-le-Château forty years earlier and portrayed Emmanuel Macron’s government as cruel and despotic.
At the same time, Iranian authorities were cracking down on protests by pensioners, workers, teachers and students. Then, as now, the tactic allowed Tehran to answer criticism of its own repression by accusing its critics of hypocrisy. Human rights become an arena for diplomatic one-upmanship rather than obligations owed to citizens.
France’s conduct must, of course, be scrutinized on its own merits. Injuries to demonstrators, particularly minors, demand independent investigation and accountability. But the evidence concerning Iran is substantial.
In March 2024, the UN Independent International Fact-Finding Mission concluded that violations committed during the repression of “Woman, Life, Freedom” included crimes against humanity.
Its findings encompassed murder, imprisonment, torture, rape and other sexual violence, persecution and enforced disappearance. The mission documented the involvement of state institutions and security forces, undermining attempts to portray the violence as a series of isolated excesses.
On September 17, 2026, the same mission reported that Iranian authorities had also committed crimes against humanity during the crackdown on protests that began in late December 2025 and continued into January.
Generation Z played a crucial role in “Woman, Life, Freedom” following Mahsa Amini’s death in September 2022. Schoolgirls removing their headscarves, teenagers challenging clerical authority and young women demanding control over their bodies exposed the limits of decades of ideological education.
The state had sought to reproduce loyalty. Instead, many young people asserted their right to determine how they would live.
Young Iranians mobilized again in the protests that began in late 2025, bringing another generation raised entirely under the Islamic Republic into confrontation with the state. Their rejection of its prescribed norms challenges the assumption that political control necessarily produces ideological consent.
The authorities’ response combines repression with continued recruitment into structures of loyalty. The Basij, under Revolutionary Guards command, provides a network for ideological discipline and security mobilization.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have reported that an IRGC recruitment campaign accepts children as young as twelve, with Amnesty documenting children carrying weapons and serving at checkpoints and on patrols.
This goes beyond patriotic rhetoric: it places children directly in harm’s way. The state invokes the protection of young people abroad while drawing children into its military apparatus at home.
Yet Iranian youth cannot be divided neatly between those who serve the regime and those who confront it. Many seek simply to build lives apart from official Iran. Their resistance is not limited to protest: it also finds expression in everyday acts—choosing what to wear, loving, dancing, listening to music, nurturing friendships and keeping parts of their lives beyond the authorities’ control.
This has produced a form of what might be called “secular separatism”: an attempt to shield personal life from the regime’s ideological grip.
Within social, cultural and emotional circles, and spaces of celebration, another, fragile society is taking shape, though access to it inevitably varies with resources and social background.
Joy itself can become a way of asserting autonomy. Under a regime that glorifies martyrdom and encourages citizens to denounce one another, the simple acts of enjoying life and pursuing happiness acquire political meaning.
Tehran claims to speak for French high school students. It should begin by listening to young Iranians who aspire to build their own lives.
Jurors at Woolwich Crown Court were taken through photographs, messages and phone records documenting communications among the three defendants and between Mostafa Sepahvand and two men in Iran.
Sepahvand, 41, Farhad Javadi Manesh, 46, and Shapoor Qalehali Khani Noori, 57, have all pleaded not guilty to charges under Britain’s National Security Act 2023.
Prosecutors say they gathered information for Iranian intelligence to prepare for serious violence against at least one target, with Sepahvand expected to carry out an attack and the others helping to plan it.
Locations and social media
In an exchange on December 19, 2024, Sepahvand received a postcode from a UK mobile number and forwarded it to Javadi Manesh, the court heard.
The prosecutor told jurors the postcode identified the location of Volant Media, Iran International’s parent company. Sepahvand also forwarded the telephone number from which he had received it.
Messages from December 24 showed Sepahvand sending Javadi Manesh a photograph of Hosseini, a link to his Instagram account and information about Iran International’s website.
In one message, Sepahvand wrote: “go to insta and you will see both the dog and the car”.
The prosecution also reminded jurors of a video Noori had sent to Sepahvand showing a park where Hosseini walked his dog, Niko. Other messages referred to the dog’s name and a blue Volkswagen.
Jurors were shown photographs recovered from Noori’s phone depicting Malthouse Court in Brentford from several angles, taken from inside a car.
Prosecutors had previously told the court that Iran International journalist Mojtaba Pourmohsen lived there between 2019 and 2023, but the defendants appeared unaware he had moved.
Money and contacts in Iran
The prosecution examined records of Sepahvand’s communications with Mostafa Ghorbani and another contact saved as “Amin Mostafa’s Friend”, both in Iran.
The exchanges included discussions about transferring money to Sepahvand and references to an account in his name at the Workers Welfare Bank.
Jurors also heard messages concerning Sepahvand’s court case in Iran. In one, Ghorbani wrote: “haji says your case will be fine”.
Sepahvand sent Ghorbani two Iranian court documents concerning vehicles linked to him. The documents included instructions to impound the vehicles and arrest Sepahvand if he was found driving them.
Shortly after sending the documents, Sepahvand called Ghorbani and the two spoke for nearly a minute and a half, according to the records presented to the jury.
In later exchanges, Sepahvand complained that nothing had happened with his case. The logs showed repeated attempts to reach Ghorbani, including unanswered calls in early January.
Prosecutors previously said Sepahvand wanted help resolving an Iranian criminal conviction, which they consider relevant to his motivation. Jurors were told not to treat the conviction itself as evidence against him.
A police witness was questioned about the dates, times and durations of calls and messages recorded in the logs, rather than asked to draw conclusions about their significance.
Defendants dispute prosecution’s account
According to the prosecution’s account of his defense, Sepahvand accepts conducting surveillance for Iran but says he feared the consequences of refusing and deliberately did a poor job. Prosecutors reject that account.
Javadi Manesh and Noori accept visiting locations and taking photographs and videos but say they did not know they were assisting Iranian intelligence, according to the prosecution.