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French President Emmanuel Macron said the West should tighten sanctions on Iran, targeting government officials who were part of a violent crackdown on protesters in the Islamic Republic demanding women’s rights.
Iranian women – and some men – have been protesting the government’s strict restrictions on their daily lives since late September, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested on suspicion of violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
Tens of thousands in France and Europe marched in solidarity with rebel Iranians, demanding women’s freedom and an end to mandatory hijabs.
French music and movie stars, including two Oscar-winning actors Marion Cotillard and Juliette Binoche, filmed themselves cutting their hair in support of protesters in Iran.
“Iranian women have fought this fight with extraordinary courage, with their lives and the lives of their loved ones at stake,” Mr Macron told public radio station FranceInter on Monday’s broadcast.
Mr Macron said their revolt against the clergy-led state had “burst the ideological bubble that Tehran sent to the world” that Iranians don’t want Western values ​​and that women there are “somehow happy to live in this kind of non-existence”. changing environment” barrier state. “
Mr Macron said continued protests by young Iranians born after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1979 proved them wrong.
“Descendants of the (Islamic) revolution are leading a revolution against this revolution,” Mr Macron said.
He added that the West needed to support their struggle, including tightening European sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“I am in favour of a strong diplomatic response and sanctions against regime figures responsible for this revolution,” Mr Macron said.
He recorded his comments on Friday after a meeting in Paris with four activists fighting for the rights of Iranian women in exile.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani slammed Macron for meeting activists, including two U.S.-based Iranian dissidents Masih Alinejad and Raden Bo Ladan Boroumand.
Mr Kanani warned Mr Macron on Monday that supporting Iranian dissidents “whose people “know their true nature” was a “wrong, short-sighted policy” that could jeopardize France’s “long-term interests” in the region.
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