The Curious Case of Clotilde Reiss

by Patrick Seale

Released: 24 May 2010

A minor sub-plot of Iran’s dispute with the West over its nuclear programme is the case of Clotilde Reiss, a young Frenchwoman of 24, who from an early age developed a passion for Iran.

This was largely due to the influence of a neighbour, Parirokh Gharaei, an Iranian woman who had settled in Paris after the 1979 revolution, and become Clotilde’s nanny. When Clotilde’s mother’s died of cancer in 2000, Paririkh looked after the girl even more devotedly. She took her to Iran, a visit which confirmed her interest in all things Persian. Clotilde went on to study Farsi at the university, as well as obtaining a degree in history from the Sorbonne.

She then made two further study visits to Iran, staying at the French Institute of Iranian Studies in Tehran, but unable to get a scholarly post to her liking, she found employment for a short spell at France’s Commissariat à l’énergie atomique, where her father was working. There she was given the task of studying Iranian press coverage of nuclear affairs between June and September 2007. She also wrote an internal 5-page memo on Iran’s geostrategic situation -- a document which was later used against her when it somehow found its way to Iran.

Late in 2008, within the framework of a university exchange programme, she managed to get a job teaching French at a technology institute in Ispahan, some 300 kilometres from Tehran. But, as she had by this time fallen under suspicion, her request to renew her visa beyond 1 July 2009 was refused.

Preparing to leave the country, she returned to Tehran. But, almost immediately, she found herself caught up in the extraordinary explosion of mass protests which followed Ahmadinejad’s rigged presidential election of 15 June. Joining the demonstrators, she sent her friends numerous e-mails and pictures of the street-fighting. Not altogether surprisingly, she appears to have shared with the French embassy whatever information she was able to pick up. All foreign diplomats in Tehran were scrambling to follow the revolutionary ferment and grasp what it might mean for the future of the Iranian regime.

On 1 July, as Clotilde was about to fly out of Iran, she was arrested at the airport and incarcerated in Evin prison. Brought before a revolutionary tribunal on 1 August, she was charged with espionage. Part of the case against her was the report she had written for the French atomic energy commissariat two years earlier.

Clotilde spent six weeks in Evin prison before being released on 16 August on bail of 200,000 euros. Placed under house arrest at the French embassy, she spent long weeks studying Arabic -- and managed to pass the first year exam of a degree course. In the early mornings, she jogged in the embassy gardens.

Meanwhile, a great deal of diplomatic activity was taking place on her behalf. President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed to those friendly heads of state who happened to be on good terms with Iran, to plead for her release. He was later to pay public tribute to Brazil’s President Lula da Silva, Syria’s President Bashar al-Asad and Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade for their active role in securing her freedom.

Clotilde flew home to Paris on 16 May. A day earlier, an Iranian court had commuted her two five-year sentences to a fine of 3 billion rials (just over $300,000), paid by her Iranian lawyer. He will no doubt be reimbursed by the French government.

On the day of her release, President Lula and Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Tehran to negotiate their “fuel swap” agreement over Iran’s low enriched uranium -- a move they evidently hoped would end the pressure for further sanctions. Washington unfortunately does not share this view.

Both France and Iran deny that a deal was struck to exchange prisoners. But a few days before Clotilde’s release a French court refused an American request to extradite Majid Kakavand, an Iranian businessman accused of violating the trade embargo against Iran. Still more significantly, Ali Vakili Rad, an Iranian serving a life sentence for the killing in 1991 of the Shah’s last prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, was freed by a French court and allowed to fly home to a hero’s welcome.

There is little doubt that Clotilde shares the anger of her young Iranian friends at President Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election, and at the harsh repression that followed. She must have passed on to the French embassy her impressions of the protest movement. But was she a French spy? All the evidence suggests that she was no more than a useful ‘contact’ whose grass-roots knowledge of the student movement was useful at a moment of acute political crisis.

It would seem that educated young Iranians, and indeed Iran’s professional middle classes, feel that the rough-spoken Ahmadinejad is not a suitable president for a country such as theirs, heir to a great and ancient civilization. They are puzzled and depressed at the backing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has given Ahmadinejad. They would have preferred the Supreme Guide to stay above the fray.

Clotilde evidently shares these views. But she will have to wait awhile before being able to return to a country she knows well and loves dearly.

Patrick Seale is a leading British writer on the Middle East. His latest book is The Struggle for Arab Independence: Riad el-Solh and the Makers of the Modern Middle East (Cambridge University Press).

Copyright © 2010 Patrick Seale – distributed by Agence Global

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Released: 24 May 2010
Word Count: 867
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