Arab News | Iran shuts language center linked to French embassy

TEHRAN: Iranian authorities on Sunday announced the closure of a French language center associated with the embassy, accusing it of having undertaken “illegal activities,” drawing a sharp response from Paris.

“Based on the Tehran prosecutor’s office, the illegal center affiliated with the French embassy in Tehran, which has operated for years under the guise of language instruction, was closed,” the judiciary’s Mizan news website said, referring to the French Language Center (CLF).

The judiciary accused the center of conducting “illegal acts that violated diplomatic conventions.”

It accused the center of having “abused its status as a language training facility” and of having sought to “identify and build networks among the country’s elite figures while facilitating their departure.”

The French foreign ministry said Sunday: “This new attack on the French cultural presence in Iran… is unjustifiable and unacceptable.”

Paris would “take appropriate measures to respond,” it added.

The ministry also said it would summon Iran’s ambassador at the request of French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot.

Relations between Tehran and Paris have been strained in recent months.

Last month, France announced the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats in response to the brief arrest and banning of two French envoys to the Islamic republic.

Tehran had accused the two French diplomats of “interference in Iran’s internal affairs.”