France concerned over citizen missing in Iran, minister says
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FILE PHOTO: France's Delegate Minister for Foreign Trade and French Nationals Abroad Laurent Saint-Martin listens to the speech of France's Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot, after a meeting with European partners to suggest a negot
PARIS (Reuters) -A French man has been missing in Iran since mid-June, France's minister responsible for the country's residents abroad said on Monday, adding that Paris had no details on what had happened to the man.
"It's a worrying disappearance and we are in contact with the family," Laurent Saint-Martin, who is also trade minister, told RTL radio.
"It is worrying because Iran has a deliberate policy of taking Western hostages," he added.
But Saint-Martin did not say specifically that the Iranian authorities were holding the man, who also has German nationality.
French media reported that the man was an 18-year-old who had been on a cycling trip in the region but went missing a few days after Israeli planes struck targets in Iran.
Separately, a diplomatic source said Iran has charged two French nationals - Jacques Paris and Cecile Kohler - with spying for Israel's Mossad intelligence service. The two have been held in Iran more than three years in what France has called state-sponsored hostage taking.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, who spoke with his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araqchi on Sunday, made no mention in a statement of the missing teenager but demanded the "immediate and unconditional" release of Paris and Kohler.
Kohler's sister on Sunday said that the two had been moved from Evin prison in Tehran after Israel bombed the site but that she had not been told where the two were now being held.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards have detained dozens of foreign and dual nationals in recent years, often on espionage-related charges. Rights groups and Western countries accuse Tehran of using foreign detainees as bargaining chips, which it denies.
France in May filed a case at the World Court against Iran for violating the right to consular protection, in a bid to pressure Tehran over the detention of its two citizens.
(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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