Overview
- Paris police moved to ban a planned National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) rally that organisers say had followed two months of coordination and legal steps and that they will appeal the decision.
- The police order was issued hours after a phone call between French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and Iran’s Abbas Araqchi, a timing the NCRI highlighted to allege outside influence.
- France’s foreign ministry rejected the suggestion that the call led to the ban and said the Iranian minister did not request the protest be cancelled.
- The Paris prefecture’s notice cited a ‘particularly tense national and international context’ and warned of a serious risk of clashes between opposing activists as its public-order rationale.
- The case echoes past disputes over NCRI events in France, including a 2023 court reversal of a police ban and a 2018 conviction over a plot to bomb an NCRI gathering, and could prompt rapid court review and renewed diplomatic frictions.