Iran slams France's hypocrisy, brutality during anti-reform protests
8 Min Read
Tehran deplores the brutal response of the French authorities to demonstrators who took to the streets to oppose the cornerstone policy of Emmanuel Macron’s second presidential term.
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Franck Didron was blinded in the right eye by a rubber bullet fired at him by French police during a Yellow Vest protest in 2019. (AFP)
Iran has slammed the French government for its harsh crackdown on protesters against a contentious pension reform plan, highlighting that Paris preaches to others about human rights and still it violates them on its own territory.
Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani released a video on Sunday showing French police using excessive force against protesters who had taken to the streets to oppose the cornerstone policy of Emmanuel Macron’s second presidential term.
Kanaani sarcastically said, “The practical lesson of the French police to others is respecting human rights and honoring the rights of protesters,” in reference to the Western countries' paradoxical actions regarding the violent, sometimes armed, riots in Iran and the peaceful protests in their own countries.
He added, “This is an example of respecting human rights and honoring the rights of protesters in the ‘European Garden!'," in a clear response to contentious remarks by European Union foreign policy leader Josep Borrell, who referred to Europe as a "garden" while dismissing the rest of the world as a "jungle" that could "invade the garden."
“Human rights lectures of the self-proclaimed rights advocates are for others. They are stranger to them (their own human rights lectures). There are many of these examples in the US and Europe!” Kanaani stressed.
It is worth noting that the Iranian Foreign Ministry criticized back in December the French police's aggressive crackdown on peaceful protests across the Parisian capital, followed by an earlier armed attack in the city.
At the time, Kanaani condemned in a statement the violent and racist attacks against the protesters, which resulted in deaths in Paris.
He accused the French government of its usual behavior of adopting discriminatory policies toward minorities and migrants. Between November 2018 and January 2019, a minimum of 12 people were killed during the French security forces' crackdown on the Yellow Vest protests, who were protesting against the living and economic conditions.
The big picture
Iran has recently been the target of Western-fueled protests since the death of Mahsa Amini, whose demise was wrongfully blamed on the Iranian police. Mass riots swept across Iran in mid-September. Iranian authorities repeatedly accused Western countries, including France, of fueling the riots, and European diplomats were given a note of protest in connection with anti-Iranian media reports and calls to overthrow the country's government.
At the time, Western countries rushed to promote anti-Iranian propaganda, not to mention fabricating lies and making use of Amini's medical condition that led to her death merely for political purposes.
France took the chance and joined the anti-Iran campaign, which is based on false news, and raced to condemn Tehran.
During an interview for France Inter radio on Monday, November 14, the French President commented on the Western-induced hysteria surrounding the Iranian riots, saying that the "revolution changes a lot of things," adding that "the regime is weakened by Iran's internal situation and the demands that are hard to obtain."
He called for international sanctions against Iranian officials saying, "I am in favor of a strong diplomatic reaction and sanctions on the figures of the regime who have a responsibility" in what he called "the repression of this revolution," in an interview for France Inter radio.
Macron described the crackdown as "unprecedented", adding, "We don't rule out any option," noting that Iran's government was already the target of numerous sanctions.
The interview was recorded after Emmanuel Macron's meeting with four members of delegations of Iranian regime-change mouthpieces, as described by Fars news, including a Washington-based journalist, Masih Alinejad.
Read next: Dirty money: Meet the US agent driving the CIA-led riots in Iran
He also estimated that the current alleged "revolution" in Iran has an impact on the nuclear deal negotiations.
The French President actually confessed to interference in Iran's affairs, albeit indirectly and unintentionally, having brought up the impact of the riots on the nuclear talks, which only confirms the Iranian accusations of Western interference in the country.
"A double game"
Back in September, Iran's Foreign Ministry announced that it summoned French charge d'affaires over anti-Iran remarks in the absence of the country’s Ambassador to Tehran, as per local Iranian media.
"In response to the interventionist statement of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the participation of three French officials in protests in Paris, and the ridiculous action of Charlie Hebdo magazine, the chargé d'affaires of the French Embassy in Tehran was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs," Iran’s Fars news agency reported on September 29.
The head of Iran's Foreign Ministry's Second Bureau of West Europe told the French diplomat that Tehran strongly denounces the French Foreign Ministry's and some French officials' meddling in Iranian internal affairs.
The official added that the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement aims to purge the rioters who had no other goal than to damage public property.
He accused French officials of playing a double game: Hosting groups that have been directly involved in unrests across Iran and bashing the Iranian Police for clashing with the rioters.
The official recalled the manner in which the French police dealt with the Yellow Vest protesters who disrupted the country's peace and stability.
Read more: When double standards reign, Western 'humanity' dies between the lines
French nationals confess to unrest in Iran
It is worth noting that Iran released a video on October 6 of two French citizens, Cecile Kohler and Jacque Paris, arrested for espionage in Tehran. The two are unionists with France's National Federation of Education, Culture, and Vocational Training.
In the clips, Kohler confessed to being an “intelligence and operation agent of French foreign security service.” The two French nationals infiltrated into Iran as tourists on April 28 but turned out to be spies for Western intelligence agencies.
According to the Iranian Intelligence Ministry, the duo attempted to foment instability and social disorder earlier in June when some teachers took to the streets in peaceful protests to demand fair wages and better working conditions.
Read next: Iranian intelligence arrests element linked to detained French spies
What is happening in France?
About 26 arrests were made and over 4,000 others were stopped and searched during Saturday's protests that engulfed France over President Emmanuel Macron's controversial pension reform, as well as continued rolling strikes affecting refineries, public transportation, and waste collection.
France's Ministry of the Interior reported that over 368,000 protesters rallied across France today to demonstrate against a reform intended to raise the retirement age to 64.
Despite all this, France's Senate voted late Saturday to approve a deeply unpopular reform to the country's pension system.
Unions, which have fiercely opposed the measures, still hoped on Saturday to force Macron to back down.
This week, Macron twice turned down urgent calls by unions to meet with him in an attempt to get him to change his mind. The President's actions made unions "very angry", expressed Philippe Martinez, boss of the left CGT union.
Several sectors in the French economy have been targeted by union calls for indefinite strikes, including rail and air transport, power stations, natural gas terminals, and rubbish collection.
So, technically, when people protest for their most basic rights in a European country, they are attacked and beaten under the pretext of putting an end to riots.
In stark contrast, the actual riots taking place in Iran, coupled with vandalism, violence, murders, and arson, which are in fact instigated by the very natural death of Mahsa Amini, are hailed as acts of "democracy" that ought to be protected by all means necessary, even if that leads to the violation of a country's sovereignty and interference in its internal affairs through collaborators and proxies, such as the terrorist groups MEK and ISIS.
The aim behind all that is going on in the Islamic Republic of Iran is terrorizing and fomenting unrest in the West Asian country after all the development and progress it has achieved at all levels. Rising as a key influential player in the region, all eyes, whether friends' or foes', remain focused on the Islamic Republic either to build or to tear down bridges.
