Sawt Falasteen - French couple head home after more than three years in Iranian jail

Cecile Kohler, 41, and Jacques Paris, 72, were due back in France on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said as he hailed their departure from the country facing US threats of devastating attacks.

The couple had been under house arrest at the French embassy in Tehran since they were freed in November.

"It is a relief for all of us and clearly for their families," President Emmanuel Macron said in a social media post announcing the news. Macron thanked Oman for its mediation "efforts" in the case.

Barrot told French television that Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi informed him on Sunday that the couple could depart. The pair left Tehran at dawn Tuesday in a diplomatic convoy with the French ambassador for the Azerbaijan capital Baku, where they were to spend the night, a foreign ministry source told AFP.

They departed after US President Donald Trump on Monday warned of widespread strikes on civilian infrastructure once a deadline he issued for the Islamic republic to reopen the vital Strait of Hormuz had expired.

French authorities have become more anxious about Trump's rhetoric and the foreign ministry source said the threats were probably "decisive" in Iran's decision to let the pair leave.

In a separate case, Iranian national Mahdieh Esfandiari remains in France, her lawyer, Nabil Boudi, told AFP, despite previous suggestions from Tehran that she could be exchanged for Kohler and Paris in a prisoner swap.

Esfandiari was sentenced by a French court in February to one year in prison for justifying terrorism over comments she made on social media, including on Palestinian militant group Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

But her house arrest order was lifted following the French couple's departure from Iran, her lawyer told AFP.

A source from Macron's office said that Esfandiari was a "separate case", noting she had lodged an appeal, without offering further details.

The French government has never mentioned a potential exchange deal, though Barrot acknowledged there were "sensitive" talks being held.

- 'Tears in my eyes' -

Kohler and Paris -- both teachers, although Paris is retired -- were arrested in May 2022 at the end of a trip to Iran that their families say was for tourism.

At the end of a closed-door trial, an Iranian court in October sentenced them to jail on espionage charges their families say were fabricated.

The tribunal jailed Paris for 17 years and Kohler for 20 years for allegedly spying for France and Israel.

They were released the following month.

Officials and their supporters celebrated the return. "We are waiting for their return to France so we can give them a big hug," Anne-Laure Paris, Jacques Paris's daughter, told AFP.

The lawyer for their support committee, Thierry Moser, told AFP that he was "overjoyed". "I have tears in my eyes, I'm almost struggling to speak," he said.

The pair were among a number of Europeans caught up in what activists and some Western governments describe as a deliberate strategy of hostage-taking by Iran to extract concessions from the West.

O.Salim--SF-PST