Two-minute read
In a powerful op-ed published on July 2, 2025, in L’Humanité titled “Iran: la voie de la Résistance”, Jean-Pierre Brard, former French deputy and mayor of Montreuil, asserts that the only path to meaningful change in Iran lies in democratic regime change — led not by foreign powers or exiled royalty, but by the people of Iran and their organized Resistance.
Brard, who now serves as president of the French Committee for a Democratic Iran (CFID), highlights the critical role played by Resistance Units inside Iran, describing them as the backbone of a broad, grassroots movement committed to ending the clerical dictatorship. He reports that over 3,000 anti-repression actions have been carried out by these units in just the past year, underscoring the depth and reach of this internal challenge to the regime’s power.
The article marks the anniversary of a pivotal turning point: the June 20, 1981 uprising, when half a million peaceful protesters in Tehran were met with bullets on Khomeini’s orders. It was on that day, Brard notes, that the Resistance resolved to never retreat — a movement that has persisted now for 43 years.
Throughout the piece, Brard catalogues the Iranian regime’s extreme brutality: over 100,000 executions of dissidents, including more than 30,000 political prisoners massacred in 1988, most of them supporters of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK). He adds that since August 2024, at least 1,350 executions have been recorded — making Iran the global leader in executions per capita.
Jean-Pierre Brard: The #IranianResistance Chose Not to Back Down—and It Will Winhttps://t.co/i2DRews4he
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) June 25, 2025
Brard does not limit his criticism to Tehran. He sharply rebukes Western governments for decades of appeasement, recalling how in 2002 the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) exposed the regime’s secret nuclear weapons program — only to be met with silence and the blacklisting of the Resistance movement itself. “The democracies chose to dialogue with the executioners instead of the whistleblowers,” he writes.
Rejecting both foreign military intervention and dynastic nostalgia, Brard warns against “those who imagine history can be repeated” through figures like the Shah’s son — whose family legacy, he reminds readers, was built by foreign intervention, not popular will. These are, in his view, diversions from the only viable solution: an uprising rooted in Iran’s own society.
Wise words from former French MP Jean-Pierre Brard—worth revisiting as some try to repackage the Shah’s son as an alternative to the mullahs’ regime:
“Because as barbaric, as cruel as the mullahs, there is none. And those are criminals
who are looking for alternative solutions to… pic.twitter.com/K1m2H9o3V9— SIMAY AZADI TV (@en_simayazadi) June 23, 2025
That solution, Brard explains, is already clearly articulated in Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan — the democratic platform of the NCRI. It includes:
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Freedom of expression, parties, and the press
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Separation of religion and state
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Gender equality
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Ethnic minority autonomy
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Environmental protection
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A nuclear-free Iran
He frames this vision as aligned with universal values and echoes of past struggles for liberty — including France’s own history. Quoting a revolutionary ideal, Brard writes: “The true revolutionaries are those who perceive the beacon of liberty in the dark, when no one else yet sees it.”
That beacon, he concludes, now shines clearly — and it shines from inside Iran.