Iran has shut the French Language Centre in Tehran after a judicial order, escalating a dispute with France that has already led to the detention of embassy staff and reciprocal diplomatic expulsions.
Iranian authorities closed the centre on Sunday following an order from the prosecutor's office. The centre had operated in Tehran for more than 20 years, offering French courses and examinations as well as a media library.
Iran accused the centre of conducting “illegal acts that violated diplomatic conventions”. The judiciary said it had “abused its status as a language training facility” in an effort to “identify and build networks among the country's elite figures while facilitating their departure”.
It also said the centre had “operated for years under the guise of language instruction”. Iran has not set out specific evidence for its allegations, or details of the activities it says breached diplomatic conventions.
France condemned the decision and said it would summon Iran's ambassador. Paris also said it would take “appropriate measures”, without saying what those measures would involve.
Pascal Confavreux, a spokesperson for the French Foreign Ministry, said on Sunday: “This new attack against France's cultural presence in Iran, following the assault on two staff members of the French embassy last July, is unjustifiable and unacceptable”.
The closure follows several months of increasingly direct confrontation. In July, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said Tehran had held two French diplomats without reason for several hours and that one of them had been assaulted. Iran later banned the two staff from working in the country.
Iran's Intelligence Ministry said in August that the two diplomats had been detained during a national security investigation over alleged foreign interference. It said they were subsequently handed over to the French ambassador.
Esmaïl Baghaei, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the staff had breached the Vienna Convention through activities supporting Iranian civil society. France rejected the Iranian allegations and has said a pattern of intimidation has developed in recent months.
France responded by expelling two diplomats from the Iranian embassy in Paris. The exchange left both governments with fewer diplomatic channels at a time when their wider disagreements remain unresolved.
There has also been public friction between the foreign ministers. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi described a social media post by Barrot marking the fourth anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death as “crocodile tears”. The exchange also took place against arguments over France's colonial history.
The immediate diplomatic timetable will now bring the two sides into contact. Barrot and his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi are due to meet on Tuesday at the United Nations, which is holding its annual General Assembly in New York.
President Emmanuel Macron is also expected to meet Iran's President, Masoud Pezeshkian, in New York. Iran's ambassador to France, Mohammad Amin-Nejad, was due to meet senior French foreign ministry officials on Monday to explain the closure decision.
It remains unclear whether the centre's closure will be permanent, whether students and staff received prior notice, or what action France will take beyond summoning the ambassador. Those questions leave the dispute unresolved as the two governments prepare for talks at the UN.
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