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Iran has released from prison a French pair held for more than three years and sentenced to lengthy jail sentences on espionage charges their families always rejected, French President Emmanuel Macron announced on Tuesday.Cecile Kohler, 41, and Jacques Paris, 72 — she a high school teacher, he a retired teacher, both on a tourist visit to Iran when they were arrested in May 2022 — are now “on their way to the French embassy in Tehran”, Macron said on X.He welcomed this “first step” and said talks were underway to ensure their return to France as “quickly as possible”.French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot added in a separate post on X that they were now at the residence of the French ambassador and “awaiting their definitive release” from Iran. Their Paris-based legal team said in a statement to AFP that the release had “ended their arbitrary detention which lasted 1,277 days”.Their release comes at a time of acute sensitivity in dealings between Tehran and the West in the wake of Israel’s 12-day June war against the Islamic republic and the reimposition of UN sanctions in the standoff over the Iranian nuclear drive.- ‘State hostages’ -Kohler and Paris were among a number of Europeans still held by Iran in what several European governments, including France, describe as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking by Tehran to extract concessions from the West.France has described them as “state hostages”.Kohler and Paris were the last two French citizens officially known to be held by Tehran after several other French nationals were released over the last months.Their sentences on charges of spying for France and Israel issued last month after a closed door trial amounted to 17 years in prison for Jacques Paris and 20 years for Cecile Kohler.The families insisted they are wholly innocent and were only visiting Iran as tourists.Kohler was shown in October 2022 on Iranian television in what activists described as a “forced confession”, a practice relatively common for detainees in Iran which rights groups say is equivalent to torture.France had filed a case with the Hague-based International Court of Justice over the couple’s detention, saying they were held under a policy that “targets French nationals travelling in or visiting Iran”.But in September, the ICJ suddenly dropped the case at France’s request, causing disappointment among the families but also sparking speculation that closed-door talks were underway between France and Iran for their release.Iran, which has previously carried out exchanges of Westerners for Iranians held by the West, has previously said the couple could be freed as part of a swap deal with France, which would also see the release of Iranian Mahdieh Esfandiari. Esfandiari was arrested in France in February on charges of promoting terrorism on social media, according to French authorities. She is to go on trial in Paris from January 13 but was last month released on bail by the French judicial authorities in a move welcomed by Tehran.

Cement conglomerate Lafarge went on trial in France Tuesday, accused of paying the Islamic State group and other jihadists protection money to build its business in war-torn Syria.In a similar case in the United States, the French firm pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to US-designated “terrorist” organisations and agreed to pay a $778-million fine, in what was the first time a corporation had faced the charge.In the French trial, Lafarge — which has since been acquired by Swiss conglomerate Holcim — is accused of paying millions of dollars in 2013 and 2014, via its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), to jihadist groups and intermediaries to keep its plant operating in northern Syria.Groups it allegedly paid include the Islamic State group (IS) and Syria’s then Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.Defendants include Lafarge, its former chief Bruno Lafont, five ex-members of operational and security staff, and two Syrian intermediaries.One of the Syrians was not present and is subject to an international arrest warrant.The defendants were accused of “funding terrorism” and violating international sanctions at the start of the trial.Lafarge could face a fine of up to $1.2 million if found guilty of “funding terrorism” and much more if found to have breached sanctions.Holcim, which took over Lafarge in 2015, has said it had no knowledge of the Syria  dealings.- Syrian staff left behind -Lafarge finished building a $680-million factory in Jalabiya in 2010, before Syria’s civil war erupted in March the following year amid opposition to then-president Bashar al-Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests.Foreign groups and powers also became involved and IS jihadists gained ground from 2013. They seized large swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring a so-called cross-border “caliphate”.They implemented their brutal interpretation of Islamic law, carrying out public executions, cutting off the hands of thieves, and selling women from the Yazidi minority as sex slaves.While other multinational companies left Syria in 2012, Lafarge evacuated only its expatriate employees and left its Syrian staff in place until September 2014, when IS seized control of the factory.In 2013 and 2014, LCS allegedly paid intermediaries to access raw materials from IS and other groups and to allow free movement for the company’s trucks and employees.Kurdish-led Syrian fighters, backed by the air power of a US-led coalition, defeated IS and its proto-state in 2019.- Crimes against humanity? -An inquiry was opened in France in 2017 after several media reports and two legal complaints in 2016, one from the finance ministry for the alleged breaching of an economic sanction and another from non-governmental groups and 11 former LCS staff members over alleged “funding of terrorism”.The Paris trial is scheduled to last until December 16.In the US case, the Justice Department said Lafarge sought IS help to squeeze out competitors, operating an effective “revenue sharing agreement” with them.Lafont, who was chief executive from 2007 to 2015 when Lafarge merged with Holcim, at the time denounced the inquiry as “biased”.Another French investigation into Lafarge’s alleged complicity with crimes against humanity is ongoing.In the United States, around 430 Americans of Yazidi background and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad have filed a civil suit accusing the group of supporting brutal attacks on the population through a conspiracy with IS.

With replicas of missiles on display and effigies of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu hanging from a crane, thousands of Iranians commemorated on Tuesday the 1979 storming of the US embassy in Tehran. Five months after a brief war with Israel that saw the US join in with strikes on key nuclear facilities, demonstrators chanted “Death to America, death to Israel!” and sang revolutionary songs in a particularly charged outing for the annual event. Though the commemorations are held annually, “this year, the country is under a bit of pressure” from its two arch foes, said student Mohammad Hossein, 15, standing next to a friend whose shoes bore the trademark swoosh of American apparel giant Nike. “We must be more visible this year so that the authorities, the army and others can feel at ease and know that we are behind them,” he added.Throughout the day, US and Israeli flags were burned and trampled, and participants dressed as Israeli soldiers pretended to mourn over fake coffins draped with the Star of David, mocking the country’s losses in Gaza. The swinging effigies of Trump and Netanyahu, meanwhile, called to mind the public executions sometimes carried out by Iran. “America’s hostility towards us will never end,” said Malek, 57, a labourer who declined to give his full name, adding “America’s job is to deceive”.In mid-June, Israel launched an unprecedented wave of air strikes on targets across Iran, including military sites, nuclear facilities and residential areas, killing dozens of senior officials and scientists. Over the course of the 12-day war that followed, Washington joined its ally in striking three nuclear sites, despite having been involved in ongoing talks with Tehran over its atomic programme. – Missiles and centrifuges -“Our feeling is much different (this year) because our country has been seriously attacked,” said Sareh Habibi, a 17-year-old student. “Our peers, teenagers and the youth, were martyred, and somehow it seems like a mission on our shoulders to come” to the demonstration, she added.Along the parade route, replicas of missiles — similar to the ones fired at Israeli cities during the war — were displayed bearing the slogan “We love to fight the Israeli regime”. Mock uranium centrifuges were also set out, a nod to Iran’s insistence on its right to develop a civilian nuclear programme despite Western suspicions it is seeking a bomb — an accusation Tehran denies. According to state media, similar commemorations took place in several other cities, including Mashhad in the northeast, Kerman in the south and Rasht in the north.Some participants carried portraits of Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while others hoisted the image of Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah who was killed in an Israeli strike last year.On November 4, 1979, less than nine months after the overthrow of Iran’s monarchy and the establishment of the current Islamic republic, a group of students stormed the US embassy in Tehran, deeming it a “nest of spies”.Several dozen American diplomats were held hostage, some for 444 days, marking a break between Tehran and Washington, which were previously allies. The animosity has persisted for decades, and Khamenei ruled out on Monday any cooperation with the United States until Washington changed its policy towards the region, including its support for Israel.

Cement group Lafarge went on trial in France Tuesday, accused of paying the Islamic State group and other jihadists protection money to build its business in war-torn Syria.In a very similar case in the United States, the French firm pleaded guilty of conspiring to provide material support to US-designated foreign “terrorist” organisations and agreed to pay a $778-million fine, in what was the first time a corporation had faced the charge.In the French trial, Lafarge — which has since been acquired by Swiss conglomerate Holcim — is accused of paying millions of dollars in 2013 and 2014, via its subsidiary Lafarge Cement Syria (LCS), to jihadist groups and intermediaries to keep its plant operating in northern Syria.Groups it allegedly paid include the Islamic State group (IS) and Syria’s then Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.Defendants include Lafarge, its former director Bruno Lafont, five ex-members of operational and security staff, and two Syrian intermediaries.After the hearing opened, presiding judge Isabelle Prevost-Desprez called the defendants to the stand to hear the charges against them.They have been accused of “funding terrorism” and violating international sanctions.Lafarge could face a fine of up to $1.2 million if found guilty of “funding terrorism” and much more if found to have breached sanctions.Holcim, which took over Lafarge in 2015, has said it had no knowledge of the Syria business dealings.- Syrian staff left behind -Lafarge finished building its $680-million factory in Jalabiya in 2010, before civil war broke out in Syria in March the following year.The conflict erupted with then-president Bashar al-Assad’s brutal repression of anti-government protests, and evolved to include a multitude of armed groups and foreign powers.Among them, IS jihadists gained ground in northern Syria from 2013.They would go on to seize large swathes of the country and neighbouring Iraq in 2014, declaring a so-called cross-border “caliphate”.They implemented their brutal interpretation of Islamic law, carrying out public executions, cutting off the hands of thieves, and selling women from the Yazidi minority as sex slaves.While other multinational companies left Syria in 2012, Lafarge evacuated only its expatriate employees and left its Syrian staff in place until September 2014, when IS seized control of the factory.In 2013 and 2014, LCS allegedly paid intermediaries to access raw materials from IS and other groups and to allow free movement for the company’s trucks and employees.Kurdish-led Syrian fighters, backed by the air power of a US-led coalition, defeated IS and its proto-state in 2019.- Crimes against humanity? -An inquiry was opened in France in 2017 after several media reports and two legal complaints in 2016, one from the finance ministry for the alleged breaching of an economic sanction and another from non-governmental groups and 11 former LCS staff members over alleged “funding of terrorism”.The trial in Paris is scheduled to last until December 16.In the US case, the Justice Department said Lafarge sought IS’s help to squeeze out competitors, operating an effective “revenue sharing agreement” with them.Lafont, who was chief executive from 2007 to 2015 when Lafarge merged with Holcim, at the time denounced the inquiry as “biased”.Another French investigation into Lafarge’s alleged complicity with crimes against humanity is still ongoing.In the United States, around 430 Americans of Yazidi background and Nobel laureate Nadia Murad have filed a civil suit accusing it of supporting brutal attacks on the population through a conspiracy with IS.

Armed with his camera, Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker Basel Adra has spent years in the occupied West Bank documenting what he describes as the impunity Israelis enjoy in their mistreatment of Palestinians.From his terrace, he points to the nearby Israeli settlement of Maon, just a short distance away. The view appears calm, but he said incidents involving settlers and Israeli soldiers take place almost daily.The situation has only worsened since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, said Adra, the co-director of “No Other Land,” a documentary he made with Israeli filmmaker Yuval Abraham that this year won an Academy award.”The world allows Israelis — and gives them the impunity — to commit crimes,” the 29-year-old filmmaker told AFP at his home in the village of At Tuwani.In the nine months after accepting his Oscar in Hollywood, Adra has given score of interviews and captured hundreds of videos capturing settler violence allegedly carried out under army protection.”Dozens of Palestinian communities, villagers fled from their homes in this time due to the settler and occupation forces violence and attacks and killings,” Adra said.Taking a team of AFP journalists on a tour to illustrate the difficulties of life for Palestinians in the West Bank, Adra headed to the nearby Bedouin village of Umm al-Khair.To reach it, one must pass an Israeli settlement.On a wall, an inscription in Arabic warns: “No future for Palestine.”Since the war in Gaza began with Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, settler and army attacks in the West Bank have killed around 1,000 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Ramallah.During the same period, Palestinian attacks in the same region have killed at least 43 Israelis, including soldiers, according to official Israeli figures.- Targeted -Even the presence of international and Israeli activists, intended to deter violence, has done little to change reality for Palestinians in the West Bank.Adra recalled the killing of a close friend, fellow activist Awdah Hathaleen, on July 28.Hathaleen, he said, was filming “settlers with a bulldozer going through his family land, destroying their olive trees and fence”.His death, widely filmed by other activists and reported in the media, prompted Israeli police to open an investigation, though they did not classify it as murder.”A couple of days after this criminal settler committed these crimes, he was allowed to come again to the same place, to continue digging the same land,” Adra said.The young filmmaker, who displayed the Oscar statue, has also been targeted.”I’ve been arrested several times by the army,” Adra said.”Once, settlers came onto our land, they started pushing us, throwing stones. They had sticks, and one of them had a gun. Two of my brothers were slightly injured.””We called the police. They arrived, but the attack continued while they watched.”The military said it had received reports that “several terrorists” had hurled rocks at Israeli civilians near At Tuwani injuring two of them.”Upon receiving the report, the security forces were dispatched to the scene, conducted searches in the area and questioned suspects,” the military told AFP.Adra said that in Masafer Yatta, the cluster of villages that includes At Tuwani, settler activity is unrelenting.”They keep building settlements and illegal outposts 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.After a long legal battle, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the army in 2022, paving the way for the eviction of residents from eight Palestinian villages in the area.- ‘We will stay’ -In the village of Umm al-Khair, a few concrete houses are surrounded by settler structures — mobile homes flying Israeli flags and permanent structures encircling the Bedouins.At his desk, community leader Khalil Hathaleen — brother of the slain activist — spreads out 14 demolition orders received on October 28.According to army documents in Hebrew and Arabic, residents have 14 days to appeal.”Even if the entire village is demolished, we will stay on this land and we will not leave,” Hathaleen said.”Because there is nowhere else to go.”Like other communities in the area, the approximately 200 residents of Umm al-Khair are descendants of Bedouins expelled from the Negev desert in southern Israel in the early 1950s.About three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. Some 500,000 Israelis live there in settlements deemed illegal under international law.At the end of October, the Israeli parliament voted to advance two far-right-backed bills calling for annexation of the territory.”Growing up, I believed very much in international law,” Adra said.”I believe that the materials that I’m filming, the documentation, when they are seen abroad, somebody is going to do something.”