Paris condemns arrest of second French academic in Iran

The French Foreign Ministry on Wednesday confirmed that a second French academic has been arrested in Iran, while condemning it as “an unacceptable situation”.
According to French newspaper Le Monde, political scientist, Roland Marchal, was arrested in June at the same time as French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah.
However, the newspaper said his arrest had not been made public as French authorities were seeking to work discreetly for his release.
It is not clear what either academic had been accused of.
Marchal’s arrest was first revealed by French newspaper Le Figaro, in an article published on Tuesday evening about the capture by Iranian authorities of a dissident living in France, Rouhollah Zam.
However, the French Foreign Ministry also condemned the arrest of Zam, who it said had left France of his own free will on October 11.
The arrests came as French President Emmanuel Macron sought to broker a deal between Iran and the US after the latter pulled out of a 2015 agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme and slapped harsh sanctions on Tehran.
dpa/NAN.