Why don’t we trust the French?
According to the Sedaye Sama News Agency, Trust in diplomacy — especially in complex dossiers such as Iran’s nuclear file — is the most valuable asset. This asset is accumulated through years of negotiation, technical understandings, and political commitments. However, France’s recent record of interaction with Iran, particularly after the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018, raises a fundamental question: why should Tehran no longer trust Paris’s commitments?
France has long sought to present itself as a bridge between Iran and the West, notably the European Union and the United States. This role is often described in European diplomatic discourse as a tired trope of “mediation.” In practice, however, two key episodes have shifted France’s image from that of a “sincere mediator” to that of a “rebellious actor” or an “unhelpful broker.”
This paradigm shift stems from Paris’s failure to honor declared commitments, its obstruction of sensitive diplomatic channels, and direct violations of promises made in technical and political domains. An analysis along these two axes shows that short-term geopolitical interests and pressures from Western coalitions have overshadowed France’s long-term diplomatic pledges.
After the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the nuclear deal — an action widely viewed as a blatant violation of Article 6 of the JCPOA by Washington — the heavy burden of protecting Iran’s economic interests fell on the remaining parties, especially European states like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom (the E3). Despite formal commitments, diplomatic signatures, and joint statements, the reality was that France — although hosting meetings and publicly championing the mechanism — in practice delayed and shirked activating INSTEX.
The practical launch of INSTEX took months, and when it finally became operational, its scope was severely limited and largely restricted to humanitarian exchanges (medicine and medical equipment). This limitation amounted to a strategic retreat from the mechanism’s main pledge.
The second point is that, following recent tensions and especially after the Twelve-Day War in the region — during which France openly sided with the opposing camp (the Zionist regime and the United States) — Iran decided to scale back its technical cooperation with the IAEA and to step back from some voluntary measures beyond safeguards (such as implementation of the Additional Protocol). In this sensitive phase, intensive negotiations took place among Tehran, the IAEA, and European countries, including France, to prevent the triggering of the snapback mechanism.
In those negotiations, Paris promised Iran that, in exchange for maintaining a certain level of technical cooperation (based on an understanding reached in Cairo), France would guarantee that the Iranian nuclear file would not be referred to the IAEA Board of Governors and that the snapback mechanism would not be activated. That promise was effectively Iran’s principal leverage to sustain technical cooperation under heavy sanctions.
Regrettably, France did not honor this hollow pledge. Even after understandings aimed at de-escalation had been reached, Paris and two European partners submitted a draft resolution to the Agency that contributed to the activation path of the snapback mechanism. This action constituted a direct breach of the commitment that France itself had guaranteed.
Under such circumstances, the renewed prominent role of the French in nuclear calculations cannot be taken as evidence of Paris’s genuine will to resolve the dossier. Our diplomatic and foreign-policy apparatus must therefore approach the French brokers — who have mistakenly styled themselves as diplomats — with a very guarded stance.
Source: tasnim
