France – Le Point, January 14, 2025
Tristan Bultiauw, spokesman for the support committee for the French detainee, imprisoned in Tehran, believes that his friend has been taken “hostage” by the Islamic Republic for more than two years.
This is the third Frenchman detained in Iran. The one whose identity has long been kept secret to promote his release. But after two years and three months in prison, Olivier Grondeau decided to come out of silence.
In an audio message broadcast on Monday on the antennas of Radio France, this 34-year-old French tourist, arrested on October 12, 2022 in Chiraz while he was making a trip around the world, is calling for help to the French public. “My name is Olivier, I have been held hostage for two years and three months by the Iranian government,” he said in this excerpt recorded on December 9 from the prison of Evin in Tehran, where he is serving a five-year prison sentence for “collecting information in order to deliver to the opposing espionage service”.
Spokesman for the collective Liberté pour Olivier, created on the occasion of this speech, his friend Tristan Bultiauw denounces in an interview with the Point “completely fictitious” Iranian accusations and sounds the alarm about the situation of Olivier Grondeau and that of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris, whom France considers all three as “state hostages” in the hands of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Le Point: Why did Olivier Grondeau decide to break the silence now, after more than two years of incarceration?
Tristan Bultiauw: Initially, the accusations against him seemed so absurd that he thought he would let diplomacy or even the Iranian legal system do it, which would see that he is completely innocent of what he is accused of. Today, after two years and three months of incarceration, his health is deteriorating and his hope is decreasing. He is so exhausted that he asked us to break his anonymity, which was dear to him, during almost all of his detention. Today, we are lucky to be able to carry his word thanks to the testimonies he was able to record.
Was it the Quai d’Orsay that has long advised him to remain anonymous?
No, it was rather Olivier’s request, who chose to be represented in Iran by an Iranian lawyer. At first, he really thought that the charges against him were a misunderstanding that would be quickly settled. Then, he also chose to remain anonymous to spare his family the trials of media coverage. You know, he is someone extremely humble, who is very uncomfortable with putting himself forward. Finally, he was afraid of the risks that this would have put him in a country where arbitrariness reigns. We therefore did not know what consequences his gesture would cause. What is incredible is that he chose to remain anonymous for as long as possible, up to the extreme situation of incarceration in which he was placed.
