French former hostage Louis Arnaud shared his two-year ordeal in Iran's Evin Prison in an exclusive interview with FRANCE 24's Stuart Norval. Arnaud, a banking consultant, had been sentenced to five years in jail on national security charges after being arrested in September 2022 while travelling through Iran. He was kept in solitary confinement for large periods. "Everything is done so that you are deprived of your humanity," Arnaud told us in his first interview since his release in June 2024. French President Emmanuel Macron is now urging Tehran to free three other French nationals "without delay".
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00:00In the meantime, though, who am I to deserve such love?
00:03Those are the words of Louis Arnault, a Frenchman,
00:06on his release from detention in Iran.
00:08Now, he was released back in the summer
00:10after almost two years in jail in extremely difficult conditions,
00:15part of it isolated in solitary confinement for some of that time.
00:19Arnault had been on part of a world tour.
00:22He'd long dreamed of visiting Iran to see its rich civilisation,
00:25but he was arrested, along with others,
00:27accused of taking part in protests
00:29following the death of Massa Amini,
00:31the young Iranian Kurdish woman who died after being arrested,
00:34you'll remember, of course, by the Iranian police.
00:36Now, in his first interviews since his release,
00:39Louis Arnault is with us today here at France 24.
00:41Thanks very much for coming in and talking to us today on the programme.
00:45Six months since you were released, others, of course, are still in jail.
00:50Tell us, first of all, why you wanted to come in today
00:54to talk to us on the programme.
00:57Well, I wanted to come to give testimony
01:02of what I've experienced,
01:06of the conditions in which foreign hostages are being held
01:12in Iranian prison, and especially in Evin prison,
01:16and to sensibilise the opinion and authorities
01:23about the destiny of the French and other citizens of Europe,
01:28hostages, and of the repression, the absolute repression,
01:34that the Iranian people and the political opposition
01:39are being subject to.
01:40So, let's be clear, you've been released, but others haven't, have they?
01:45Exactly.
01:47We were seven French hostages at the peak.
01:52Now, three of them are still there.
01:56I was certain that at that time we would be at least two, if not four.
02:01It was very hard for me to see that only one of us would get out.
02:07But also, along with Olivier Grandot, with Jacques and Cécile,
02:12there are also some other European hostages.
02:15One of them is Dr Jalali, who has been in prison for nine years,
02:21almost nine years now, a Swedish citizen,
02:24and he's still on death row.
02:27And you were in contact with all of them while you were inside?
02:31No, because Olivier was detained in Shiraz at the time,
02:37and regarding Jacques and Cécile,
02:40they are still in the detention centre of the secret services.
02:47And you know what that's like.
02:49Tell us what it's like.
02:52The secret services detention centre, called 209,
02:58it's a name that all Iranian people know by heart.
03:04The typical detention conditions are a cell that is roughly eight square metres,
03:11with no window.
03:13You don't know if it's day or night.
03:16You have 24 hours lighting,
03:19and you live under the surveillance of cameras that spy on your every move.
03:27You are being treated like an animal.
03:30Actually, everything is done so that you are deprived of your humanity.
03:37You live, eat, and sleep on the floor.
03:42You are being shouted at.
03:46You're not being talked at.
03:47You're being shouted at.
03:48Barking would be the word.
03:50And you are taken for fresh air once or twice for 30 minutes once a week.
03:58And that's all.
04:00You are completely shut from the world.
04:06The world ceases to exist.
04:08The only thing that reaches you are the screams and the yells
04:13of other prisoners coming from nearby cells.
04:18And you are completely also shut from your family,
04:22and even more from the embassy, of course.
04:25During the six months that I spent there,
04:28I only had three phone calls of only a few minutes each time,
04:34and tightly monitored, and sometimes even directed.
04:39I was being told what to say.
04:42And that's all.
04:43And these calls are more there to add to the psychological distress and to help.
04:51And those calls were with family members or with the authorities?
04:54No, with family members only.
04:57Now, it is important to understand that these conditions are there and this torture,
05:03and this is the word that we need to use here,
05:06these people have become masters in torture.
05:10This torture aims at when they take you to the interrogations blindfolded,
05:17that you will confess what they've decided that you need to confess.
05:23Those can be either signed confessions or sometimes even filled confessions,
05:29like it was the case for Cecil and Jack.
05:32How on earth do you cope with that?
05:36Or do you not cope with it?
05:38It is a very long topic in this many ways,
05:44and each person survives in the way they can.
05:48When you survive, it is important to understand that in this place,
05:56there is no easy day.
05:59Every day, every hour, every minute is a fight for survival
06:05that drains the whole of your forces.
06:09And every day you are on the risk of collapsing
06:12because you will reach that point on some day.
06:16Now, I've spent six months in that place.
06:19That felt like six years.
06:21Olivier Grandot also spent some time there.
06:25Now, Jack and Cecil have been there for almost three years now.
06:33I have met and encountered many other hostages from many different countries,
06:39all with stories more horrible than the other.
06:43But I've never witnessed so much violence,
06:49and I'm extremely concerned with this
06:51because even if I spent myself six months there,
06:55I cannot even begin to imagine the physical and emotional distress they are in.
07:01And there is absolute urgency to take them and Olivier out of there.
07:06So is enough being done to try and make that happen?
07:11I don't know.
07:14I have my full trust in the French ambassador there.
07:19Now, everything is behind the curtain, so...
07:25You have no way of knowing.
07:26There is no way of knowing.
07:27What I'm trying to do here is my own part.
07:30This is the only thing I can do.
07:31And it's not just, of course, French people and people from Europe
07:35and Westerners that we're talking about here.
07:37There are many, many Iranians also who find themselves in similar positions.
07:42I was deeply moved by the way any kind of political opposition to the regime
07:53is being treated with absolute brutality.
07:58At the beginning of my detention during the protest,
08:01I met with hundreds of protesters,
08:03hundreds of them among the tens of thousands that had been arrested.
08:09Now, I've witnessed the way they have been handled.
08:13And for them, there is no limit to the amount of physical, psychological torture,
08:22pressure and blackmail that they can be subject of.
08:26I've seen people with broken ribs, broken arms, broken legs,
08:31with strangulation marks on their necks.
08:34If we are only talking about the physical part,
08:37then, of course, it's not the only part.
08:40And also, I've lived in the second part of my detention
08:44with many, many political prisoners from many different movements
08:50who are being sentenced to a prison time of five years to sometimes up to 30 years.
08:59Some of them have been executed.
09:02Some of them are on the way of being executed.
09:06And they are in distress.
09:07They feel very much that they are being left alone.
09:10Of course, you were accused of being part of the Massaramini protest
09:14with no evidence at all.
09:16And it's inevitable, isn't it, that a lot of other people
09:20who were also in these centres are in a very similar situation.
09:25Maybe they did something which, you know,
09:28us here in the West would consider completely normal,
09:30just joining a demonstration.
09:33Well, in my case, I didn't join the protest myself.
09:40And there was no proof.
09:41I mean, I was sentenced to five years with absolute, absolute no proof.
09:45For them, yes, the Iranian government called it the illegal protest.
09:52But, yes, one of them that I met, Mohsen Shekhari, who was the first one
09:57to be executed at that time, when we met,
10:02he told me, you know, Louis, yes, I got to the streets.
10:06But you know why?
10:07It's because I just wanted a normal life with a normal job
10:12that pays enough so that I can have a little bit of freedom
10:16and live a normal life.
10:18And he got executed a few weeks later.
10:21Finally, just what are your feelings about the whole situation in Iran?
10:25I mean, do you see any sign of hope?
10:27There have been, of course, many, many demonstrations,
10:30many people trying to fight back against the regime,
10:33which so far have been curtailed.
10:35Do you think there will come a point where people are able
10:39to express themselves freely and to go about their lives
10:43in the way they wish?
10:45I'm not sure I'm the one who should be answering this question.
10:50For me, the message I want to convey today is triple.
10:55The first one, the urgency is to take out the French
11:00and other European citizens who are being detained in Iran.
11:04There is absolute urgency to come to their rescue.
11:09That's point one.
11:10Now, point two is to sensitize, to raise awareness
11:19among European authorities and among Europe
11:22that there is a hostage diplomacy,
11:25there is human trafficking going on in this country
11:30that has been going on for 45 years,
11:33but has come to extreme levels in the past years,
11:37and Europe needs to do something about it
11:39so that this finally stops.
11:42And the third point is,
11:44I don't know what Iran is going to be tomorrow,
11:47but the European authorities need to condemn much more firmly
11:53the atrocities and the human rights violations
11:56that are going on on a daily basis in this country.
11:59I mean, we do see things turn around.
12:01Hopefully, we're on the verge, for example,
12:03of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
12:06Things change, don't they?
12:08But that pressure is needed to make that change happen.
12:12There is hope. I have hope.
12:16Thank you very much for coming in and talking to us.
12:18Louis Arnaud, who was in detention in Iran for two years,
12:22as you heard there from his testimony,
12:24for six months in that situation of solitary confinement.
12:28But thank you very much for coming in and talking to us on the program today.