A French couple who were arrested in Iran in May were shown giving a "confession" on Iranian state-run television on Thursday.

France has condemned the move after a broadcast showed the two saying they had been working for France's intelligence service — the DGSE — in Iran.

"Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris have been arbitrarily detained in Iran since May 2022, and as such are state hostages," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre said.

"The staging of their supposed confessions is shameful, revolting, unacceptable and contrary to international law," the statement said.

What did the French couple say in their 'confessions'?

Kohler, 37, and her husband Paris, 69, were arrested in May during protests by Iranian teachers demanding pay rises and the release of detained colleagues.

During their aired "confessions," Kohler said the two had been in Iran to fund the protests and supply weapons to "fight against the police."

She said they had been there "to prepare the conditions for the revolution and the overthrow of the Iranian Islamist regime."

The show comes as Iranian authorities try to portray the ongoing women-led protests following the death of Mahsa Amini as instigated by foreign powers.

Last week Iranian police arrested nine foreign nationals, including from France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and Italy.

Why does Iran broadcast confessions?

The broadcasting of extracted "confessions" has been frequently used by the Iranian authorities "to instill fear and repress dissent," according to a 2020 report by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.

One of the federation's member organizations, Justice for Iran, said that more than 350 such "confessions" had been aired in the past 10 years.

Iran's judiciary officially banned the use of "forced confessions," along with torture, solitary confinement and illegal police custody, in 2020 following an incident caught on camera and widely shared on social media that showed police violently beating detainees in the middle of the street.

Activists also claim that the detention of foreign nationals is used as a means to force concessions of Western powers.

There are currently more than 20 Westerners — most with dual citizenship — being held in Iranian prisons.

ab/sms (AFP, Reuters)