France – Liberation, Nov. 06, 2025
After the release of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, who were freed Tuesday evening from the Iranian prison where they had been held for three years, at least five French nationals are still being illegally detained around the world.
For more than three years—exactly 1,277 days—they had been held in the Iranian prison of Evin, in Tehran. On Tuesday, Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris were released. They had been sentenced in mid-October to twenty and seventeen years in prison respectively, mainly for espionage on behalf of the French and Israeli intelligence services. The two French nationals, who have not yet left Iranian territory or returned to France, “are doing well and appear to be in good health,” assured the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jean-Noël Barrot.
This encouraging news follows the release of Lennart Monterlos, a 19-year-old Franco-German arrested on June 16 in Iran during a cycling trip. He was freed and returned to France on October 9.
Nevertheless, according to available information, at least five French nationals are still being held illegally around the world.
In Venezuela, Camilo Castro, a French victim of Maduro’s hostage diplomacy
Camilo Castro, a 41-year-old French yoga teacher from Toulouse, has been held in the prisons of Caracas, Venezuela, since June 26, 2025. He was arrested without cause while attempting to renew his expired Colombian residence visa by going to the Paraguachón border post separating Venezuela from Colombia. According to information from August, Camilo Castro was being held in El Rodeo 1 prison, in a section for foreigners. He has not had a trial nor access to a lawyer. He is accused of “terrorism.”
His mother, Hélène Boursier, and stepfather, Yves Gilbert, have been moving heaven and earth from Toulouse to obtain his release. “I am a mother who is angry and outraged to see my son’s life threatened by issues that do not concern him, without ever being informed of anything by the Foreign Ministry, which tells us that it is acting,” said his mother, Hélène Boursier, during a support rally in September in her hometown.
