The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, announced this Tuesday that France will proceed to expel two diplomatic representatives from Iran, a decision that will be executed "in the coming days" and that is directly linked to the detention, on July 19, of two members of the French diplomatic staff on Iranian territory.
"Two Iranian diplomats in France will be expelled in the coming days," the head of French diplomacy indicated on his social networks, describing the episode that motivated this response as an "intolerable" act.
Barrot recalled that he had already warned that the detention of two workers from the French Embassy in Tehran "would have consequences." "So it has been," he emphasized, in direct reference to the announced measure.
The minister explained that "precisely because France stands by the Iranian people, supporting its artists, scientists, and researchers, two French diplomats were scandalously and deliberately assaulted on July 19," referring to the treatment received by the staff of the French legation.
At the same time, he lamented that "the Iranian people are the main victims of this period of extreme tension in the Middle East, caught between the bloody repression of the protests of January 2026 and the bombings," emphasizing the regional context in which this new diplomatic clash occurs.
The Foreign Ministry in Paris had already summoned the chargé d'affaires of Iran on July 21 to convey a formal protest over the detention and interrogation, two days earlier, of the two employees of the French Embassy in Tehran, an episode that France denounced as an act of "extremely serious intimidation."