Paris, AFP, 3 January 2018 – French President Emmanuel Macron Tuesday expressed his concern over unrest in Iran during a telephone conversation with counterpart Hassan Rouhani and called for “restraint and appeasement,” his office said.
Macron brought up “the number of victims from the demonstrations”, and the two leaders also decided to postpone French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian’s visit to Teheran this week to a later date, the Elysee said.
Twenty-one people have died and hundreds have been arrested in nearly a week of protests in Iran.
Macron’s office said the French leader underscored that “fundamental rights including freedom of expression and freedom to demonstrate must be respected.”
President Donald Trump has hinted of a possible US withdrawal from the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers — Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States — that was a signature foreign policy achievement of the administration of his predecessor Barack Obama.
