Olivier Rondeau is “free”, why was French imprisoned in Iran since 2022?

Arrested in 2022 and detained in Tehran in one of the harsher prisons of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the French “Olivier Rumbleau is free” announced this Thursday Emmanuel Macron.

The French Olivier Grondeau is now “free”. The news was announced by Emmanuel Macron in a message posted on X: “Olivier Rondeau is free, in France, among his own! We share the immense happiness and relief of his family.I thank all the state services, our ambassador to Iran and the Crisis and Support Center of the Quai d’Orsay, for their decisive action, “continues the head of state.

Aged 34, Olivier Rondeau had been arrested in October 2022 in Chiraz, in southwest Iran, while he was doing tourism and imprisoned in Evin prison, in Tehran, one of the hardest in the country. Originally from Montpellier (Hérault), he had been sentenced to “espionage and conspiracy against the Islamic Republic” to five years in prison. This sentence had been judged arbitrary by the French authorities who had denounced state hostage diplomacy on the part of Tehran.

This release is the fruit of long and intense negotiations between the two countries in a tense context between the West and the Islamic Republic of Iran on its nuclear program.“It is an immense relief,” writes the Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot on X, with a photo of the French all smile. Olivier Rondeau has been imprisoned since October 12, 2022.

“Until the end I tried to reason with them”

Very weakened in recent months, the one who will celebrate his 35th anniversary at the end of March was to take several exams, notably on a psychological level, reveals AFP. His relatives have often alerted concerning his conditions of detention, sharing his cell with eighteen other prisoners. Failed with Persian poetry, he sometimes received books sent by the French Embassy. Despite everything, this attention did not decrease the violence of a detention which he considered arbitrary and unbearable. “In my situation, to speak is to take a risk. But as there is a risk, there is hope. But I have very little left. I am really very tired,” he declared a message relayed by France Info at the end of January.

In January, still, he spoke during the 8 p.m.From Evin prison in Tehran (Iran), one of the hardest in the country. “For two years I was an exemplary, docile hostage. Until the end I tried to reason (…) I just have to be an indefinite hostage,” he explained. This Thursday, March 20, 2025, Olivier Rondeau “found his family, relatives and country. It is an immense relief, “announces the head of French diplomacy on X.

“This liberation honors French diplomacy and the hard work of our embassy in Tehran, the crisis and support center and services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which I congratulate for their perseverance,” continues Jean-Noël Barrot. As a reminder, two other French people – considered by the French authorities as “state hostages – have always been detained in this same Tehran prison since May 2022.“Our mobilization will not weaken: Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris must be released from Iranian jails. All my thoughts go to them and their families on this day,” concludes Emmanuel Macron.