Iran Frees French Citizen Olivier Grondeau After 880 Days of Imprisonment

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A French citizen imprisoned in Iran for over 880 days has been freed, French officials said Thursday.

The release of Olivier Grondeau comes as France and the rest of Europe try to pursue negotiations with Iran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

U.S. President Donald Trump meanwhile has sent his own letter to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to jumpstart talks. Trump is also pressuring Tehran over its support of Yemen’s Houthi rebels as the American military has launched an intense new campaign of airstrikes targeting the group.

In going public with his detention in January, Grondeau alluded to the politics at play in his imprisonment.

“You become a human who has been stocked away indefinitely because one government is seeking to exert pressure on another,” he said.

French President Emmanuel Macron wrote online that Grondeau had been freed. He offered no immediate details of what led to Grondeau’s release, though it came on Nowruz, the Persian New Year, when Iran has released prisoners in the past.

Jean-Noël Barrot, France’s minister for Europe and foreign affairs, posted a picture online of Grondeau smiling aboard what appeared to be a private jet.

“We will tirelessly continue our efforts to ensure that all our compatriots still held hostage, including Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, are in turn released,” Barrot wrote.

Macron also raised their cases.

“Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris must be freed from Iranian jails,” he wrote. “All my thoughts are with them and their families on this day.”

Iran does not acknowledge release

The Iranian government did not immediately acknowledge Grondeau’s release. Such releases of Westerners in Iran typically come in exchange for something. Earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei said France had arrested an Iranian woman who supported Palestinians, but said Tehran was still trying to gather more details about her case.

On Grondeau’s lap in the image from the private jet was a plastic-wrapped T-shirt bearing a picture of the pop star Britney Spears, something officials did not acknowledge in welcoming Grondeau’s release. He put it on before getting off the plane and embracing his family on returning home.

His mother had described the former youth Scrabble champion as a fan of Beyoncé and karaoke in interviews with French media after he and his family went public with his detention in January.

Grondeau was detained by Iranian authorities in October 2022 in the city of Shiraz.

Arrest came during Mahsa Amini protests

Though the exact details of what sparked Iran’s arrest of Grondeau remain unclear, his detention began in the chaotic aftermath of the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died after being detained over not wearing Iran’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, to the liking of authorities. United Nations investigators later said Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to her death, which sparked months of protests and a bloody security force crackdown in the country.

“Most of the questions were, ‘Did you take part in a demonstration,’ ‘List all of the Iranians that you met during your trip,’ ‘Why did you come to Iran?’ ‘You’re not a tourist,’” Grondeau said in a phone call aired with French broadcaster France 2 in January after going public with his case.

“One day you think you’re going to be freed very quickly, the next you think you’ll die here,” he added.

He described lights being shined on prisoners day and night, as well as being blindfolded each time he was being taken out of his cell while in solitary confinement for 72 days. He later shared a cell with over a dozen prisoners.

Asked if he had suffered ill treatment, he said: “If you look for bruises on my body you won’t find any, because they are not that stupid.”

An Iranian court later sentenced the backpacker and world traveler to five years in prison on espionage charges that he, his family and the French government vigorously denied.

He had been held at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, which holds Westerners, dual nationals and political prisoners often used by Tehran as bargaining chips in negotiations with the West.

—Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran, Lorian Belanger in Bangkok and John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed to this report.