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In a fiery editorial published by Kayhan on May 30, 2025, the newspaper — which operates under the direct supervision of the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader — openly urged Iranian authorities to detain or expel French nationals in retaliation for the recent arrest of an Iranian citizen in France.
The article focuses on Mahdiyeh Esfandiari, an Iranian woman arrested on February 29, 2025 in the French city of Lyon. According to Kayhan, Esfandiari was held for over six weeks without her family’s knowledge before the Paris prosecutor’s office issued a statement on April 12.
But Kayhan uses the case not to call for legal aid or diplomatic engagement — instead, it demands that the regime retaliate with the same tactics.
“Why don’t the Foreign Ministry, judiciary, and security agencies use the legal and legitimate right of retaliation?” the editorial asks.
The paper proposes interrogating French nationals currently in Iran, and if they refuse to condemn Israel, arrest them for “supporting war crimes.” If imprisonment is not legally feasible, it adds, they should at least be detained and expelled.
The #Iranian regime aired an interview with Asadollah Assadi, its convicted diplomat #terrorist, who was jailed in Belgium for a foiled 2018 bomb plot in Paris. This move seeks to bolster its hostage-taking diplomacy for both domestic and international audiences. pic.twitter.com/SIhC5faqkK
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 6, 2024
While cloaked in language about justice and resistance, the editorial is a textbook example of the regime’s ongoing hostage diplomacy — using foreign nationals as leverage in geopolitical disputes. Such calls echo Iran’s track record of arbitrary detentions of dual and foreign nationals, often without due process, in what rights groups and Western governments have labeled “state-sanctioned hostage-taking.”
Despite presenting itself as a defender of Palestinian rights, the Iranian regime — through its military interventions, proxy warfare, and suppression of regional peace efforts — has long been one of the most destructive forces to the Palestinian cause.