“I spoke to the walls just to hear my voice”: when Jacques Paris and Cécile Kohler, detained for three years in Iran, are at their wits’ end

Arrested on the road to Tehran airport on their return from vacation in May 2022 and thrown into the sinister Evin prison, they thought they had experienced the worst behind its walls. But the nightmare of Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris is still far from over. The war in which Iran is now plunged only adds to the anxiety-provoking atmosphere that they have been experiencing for three years already. In June 2025, Israeli strikes on Tehran intensified, and on the 23rd, the penitentiary center was targeted. The two French hostages will experience a night of terror.

In Evin prison under bombs

At the first "very, very, very loud" noise, that of "a plane skimming the roof of the prison", a thought crossed their minds: "That's it, it's for us". The first bomb falls a few meters from them. “I took my fellow inmate in my arms,” says Cécile Kohler, “because I told myself that it would be easier to die like that. We see the walls crumbling, we see things falling, dust falling in the cell. And then there was the second bomb that fell.”

The building near section 209 where they are incarcerated is destroyed and a fire breaks out. "The prisoners were screaming, banging on the doors, testifies Jacques Paris. We finally went outside, and we saw the disaster. There were 79 dead in this bombing. We almost died."

After three months without any news from the teacher couple, Pierre Cochard, the recently appointed French ambassador, is finally allowed to meet them in prison. He brings encouraging news: "Discussions have resumed with the Iranian authorities", but he cannot commit to the time frame within which an outcome is possible. This message of “measured optimism” is not enough to reassure Jacques Paris, he notes with concern. The retired professor told him spontaneously: “If it’s a few days, a few weeks that’s fine; if it’s a few months, I won’t last.” Cécile Kohler's sister is also worried: "She called me saying 'things aren't going well at all. We really need to get out of here because we're going to die, we're going to die'. Jacques told us 'I'm looking death in the face'."

Subject to the death penalty

October 2025: the Iranian regime's relentlessness towards the two French people reaches a new level. Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris were sentenced by Iranian courts to 20 years and 17 years in prison respectively for “espionage on behalf of the Mossad”. They now face the death penalty.

For Jacques Paris, who has been in solitary confinement again for several months, it's "limit, limit", he confides. By not seeing anyone ("The only human contact during the day is the hatch in the cell door that opens three times to pass you food"), he started talking to the walls, "just to hear [his] voice and express [himself], trying to keep control of his mind.

The two French people are exhausted. Fortunately, behind the scenes, negotiations with Tehran are accelerating. The outlines of a political agreement between the French and Iranian foreign ministers are becoming clearer every day. Until November 4, 2025, when the caretaker announced to Cécile Kohler: “You pack your things, you fold your blankets, you put your underwear in the trash, and goodbye”. At the end of 2025, against all expectations, the Iranians finally freed the two French people, after three and a half years of ordeal. They will then be placed under house arrest at the French embassy until their return to France on April 7, 2026.