Column by Karim Serraj

In their latest book, Emmanuel Razavi and Jean-Marie Montali reopen the case of the Iranian Revolution and the way it was received in France. From Rouhollah Khomeini’s exile in Neauphle-le-Château to the uprisings of 2025-2026, they put 50 years of ideological narratives on trial, reassess the Pahlavi dynasty, trace the Marxist, Palestinian and Islamist networks that fueled the revolution, and examine Iran’s political future. Part investigation, part indictment and part defense brief, the book, illustrated by Alfred Yaghobzadeh’s photographs, sets the Iran of the mullahs against another Iran: the Iran of kings, poets, rebellious women and a young generation seeking to reclaim its history.

In this second installment, Matthieu Ghadiri looks back on the mission entrusted to him by France’s DST, his cover identity as a future lawyer and member of the French Socialist Party, and the rapprochement between the Iranian and Algerian intelligence services. He sheds light on the discreet ties forged between the Iranian and Algerian apparatuses and describes a relationship based, according to him, on an exchange of services, covert operations and the projection of influence in Europe and Africa, particularly since 2005.

Former French counterintelligence agent Matthieu Ghadiri, who infiltrated the Iranian intelligence services, describes a system in which the Quds Force orchestrated the rapprochement between Hezbollah and the Polisario. Under this arrangement, the Lebanese Shiite movement trained the elite of Sahrawi fighters while handling part of the Polisario’s equipment and financing, as Algerian intelligence services retained political and security control over the separatist movement. In this first installment of the interview, he traces the origins of that relationship, from the Polisario’s first contacts with Ayatollah Khomeini’s inner circle to the mechanisms through which Tehran gradually extended its influence between Tindouf and the Sahel.

In this interview, French Member of the European Parliament Céline Imart (The Republicans) discusses the initiative she has brought before the European Commission and the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Kaja Kallas. The initiative focuses on two issues: assessing whether the Polisario Front meets the European Union’s legal criteria for designation as a terrorist organization, and ensuring full traceability of European Union humanitarian aid allocated to the Tindouf camps to prevent its diversion.