Two French citizens have been detained in Iran, the French foreign ministry said Thursday, denouncing what it described as a baseless arrest and calling for their immediate release.
The pair, whom the ministry did not name, are the latest Western nationals to be detained in Iran in what activists say is a deliberate policy of hostage-taking by the country to extract concessions from the West.
Iran's intelligence ministry had announced a day earlier that two "Europeans" had been arrested on accusations of seeking to "destabilise the country".
According to sources close to the case in France, the pair arrested are an official with a French teachers' union, and the unionist's spouse.
Their arrest comes as Iran is seeing unusual regular protests by teachers over their working conditions, which have seen several arrested, prompting more protests.
The French foreign ministry said France's ambassador to Tehran was seeking consular access to the detainees, while it had also summoned the Iranian ambassador in Paris.
"The French government condemns these baseless arrests," the foreign ministry said in a statement.
"It calls for the immediate release of these two French nationals and will remain fully mobilised to this end."
EU spokesman for foreign affairs Peter Stano said the arrests add to "a growing number of cases where EU citizens are being arrested" in Iran.
With EU foreign policy number two Enrique Mora currently in Iran to discuss salvaging a 2015 nuclear deal, he said the bloc would be expressing "our apprehension and uneasiness" through direct channels to Iran.
A French diplomatic source said Thursday that the nuclear negotiations were currently in a state of "deadlock" and the lack of progress was coinciding with the "intensifying provocations" by Iran such as these arrests.
Even after the recent high-profile release of British detainees Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, activists say at least a dozen Western nationals remain held in Iran.
They include Swedish-Iranian academic Ahmadreza Djalali, who was sentenced to death in 2017 on charges of espionage for Israel that are vehemently denied by his family.
Iranian media have reported that he is due to be executed by May 21, coinciding with the conclusion of a trial of a former Iranian prison official in Sweden.
There are now four French nationals currently believed to be held in Iran.
Tourist Benjamin Briere, 36, was arrested in Iran in May 2020, allegedly while flying a drone and taking photographs in a prohibited area.
Briere, until now the only Westerner held who is not of Iranian origin, was jailed for eight years on spying charges in January in a trial denounced by his family.
French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah was detained in June 2019 and in May 2020 sentenced to five years in prison on national security charges.
In October, she was moved to house arrest but jailed again in January for allegedly breaching movement rules.
