The French are deeply fascinated by revolution, and [former supreme leader of Iran Ruhollah] Khomenei is presented as a seductive revolutionary,” the French journalist Jean-Marie Montali told The Jerusalem Post, in an interview this week about his new book Tehran’s Octopus: An investigation into Iran’s spy and influence networks in France and around the world.
The intoxicating nature of revolution in French minds is perhaps why many continue to support Iran to this day, he explained on Monday.
The sway the Islamic regime has over France and the rest of the world forms the basis of Montali’s new book, co-authored with French-Iranian journalist Emanuel Razavi. The investigative book is based on field reports and interviews conducted over the past three years in the Middle East, the United States, and Europe.
There are multiple exclusive testimonies from former Western intelligence agents, Iranians working (or who have worked) inside the regime, and members of democratic and secular Iranian opposition groups. The risks and stakes of such an investigation meant that the two authors had to work discreetly.
Iran’s sway over France can perhaps be elucidated by the destination chosen by Khomenei after his exile by the shah in 1978: Neauphle-le-Château, a small town in the Yvelines region of France. The book explains (p.73) that, at a press conference on November 21 of that year, French president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, when asked about the freedom of speech Khomeini enjoyed in France, explained that he “[had] come to France under regular conditions and [had] settled not as a political refugee but as a foreign national residing in France.”
The book calls this a true betrayal of the shah’s last supporters and of millions of Iranians.
This betrayal has remained throughout the regime’s history, the book continues, whether it be the handshake between Emmanuel Macron and the so-called “Butcher of Tehran” Ebrahim Raisi or the warm welcome given by French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné to his counterpart Hossein Amir Abdollahian on January 23, 2024, at the French diplomatic mission in New York. Just a few hours earlier, Mohammed Ghobadiou, a 23-year-old hairdresser with mental disabilities had been executed in Iran for protesting.
What does Tehran's octopus aim for?
CO-AUTHORS Montali and Razavi have known each other for almost 30 years, having met when both worked at Le Figaro (Montali later became editor-in-chief) and Razavi was a reporter. The two became friends.
“[Razavi] is a real specialist in Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. I am of course, very familiar with his work, since we talk about it a lot, and two or three years ago, we started this investigation, thinking that it could become a book.”
The aim of Tehran’s Octopus is to raise public awareness, Montali told the Post, particularly in France, where the freedom of expression can be exploited by certain more radical groups.
“In France, we have a kind of fascination for intellectual debate, exchange of ideas, etc. And extremist movements or countries, theocracies, theocratic dictatorships can exploit these flaws. We are a sort of victims in France of our own universalism, in the name of freedom of opinion, and of expression,” he said.
However, where is the line?
Almost immediately after Israel struck Iranian targets on June 13, far Left Westerners joined hands with pro-Palestine and Islamist protesters to chant support for the Islamic regime. In London, Paris, and New York.
So, where did this unlikely alliance between two such incompatible groups come from?
“In 1979, Yasser Arafat was the first major leader to visit the supreme leader, Khomeini, and at that moment, the two of them declared that “The road to Jerusalem goes through Tehran.” That’s the connection between the far Left and Islamist movements, Montali explained. “This is where the horseshoe theory began – the connection between the far Left and Islamist movements. This has been a continuum since 1979.”
“You know, in the Lebanese training camps in the Beqaa Valley, there were Palestinian nationalists, Islamists, Marxists, and European revolutionary movements – separatists like the Spanish and others. This continuum I’m talking about goes all the way up to today, including the events of October 7.
“Because October 7 – you hear a lot of people say it was a Hamas operation. Yes, it was a ‘Hamas’ operation. But it was a coordinated Iran-led action, involving other Palestinian movements, an alliance between Marxism, nationalism, and Islamism. And all this aligns perfectly with the hatred that some have toward Israel.”
Such progressive anti-Israelism has taken a particular hold on France, Montali continued, in large part due to the Gallic fascination with revolution.
“In 1789, we were the first revolutionaries. And we’ve always been enamored with the figure of the revolutionary. It’s very romantic: David vs Goliath, the poor vs the rich, and so on. And our left-wing intellectuals, pipe in hand and all, have always supported those revolutionaries in the name of anti-imperialism.”
“We used all sorts of beautiful terms for it: decolonization of knowledge, asymmetrical warfare, etc. All that – it appeals to us. It’s very seductive.”
BY THE time of the Iranian Revolution in 1979, there was a loss of leftist morale in France. “The far Left intellectuals had lost their icons, because Marxist revolutions had shown themselves to be failures. Mao was a failure. Castro was a failure. Guevara was a failure.”
But a new idol was born: “Suddenly, a new ‘Guevara’ appears — but in Tehran, wearing a turban. And this man had been in exile in France for 112 days. He had the look of a wise old man, charismatic, and so on. It was very seductive.”
Montali wondered whether, if intellectuals had actually understood Khomeini before he took power, they would have supported him. “But then again,” he said, “even today, intellectuals continue to support Iran.”
Montali called the support for Iran among the literati “alarming as someone who is deeply committed to democracy.”
“These are people supporting exactly what we should be opposing.”
He told the Post that one would think that France, “which loves its secularism,” would be immune to this. Even with the Iranian regime, “a dictatorship that oppresses all minorities, all of them – ethnic, religious, political, and so on – support remains high.”
Such support is indicative of something more “insidious” happening, Montali said. Tehran’s Octopus talks a lot about infiltration (by agents of influence, surveys, and propaganda), but a more significant aspect is what he refers to as “the conquest of minds” that began in 1979.
THE MUSLIM Brotherhood and the Islamic Republic of Iran are highly interconnected, he explained. “Even before the Islamic revolution in Iran, Khomenei was in close contact with the Muslim Brotherhood, and Ali Khamenei translated the writings of the Muslim Brotherhood thinkers.”
He explained to the Post that Iran is a master of manipulation.
European counter-espionage services told him that Iran infiltrates and influences North African immigration, especially Algerian immigration, by financing cultural centers. These cohorts then become part of French society, and continue to be played by Iranian string-pulling.
“When young students protest at Sciences Po [a prestigious French university], they’re doing so under a form of ideological conditioning. I don’t believe that they’re all antisemitic. They’ve simply been indoctrinated by a pervasive narrative. If you repeat a lie enough times, it eventually becomes a credible hypothesis, and then it becomes a “truth” – even though it clearly isn’t one.”
Coupled with that is what Montali calls a “lingering post-colonial guilt” whereby French people feel remorse for having colonized in the past, and are thus drawn toward decolonizing pursuits.
So what happens when, for example, these same people are presented with the issue of Hamas’s crimes? “Even when evidence is presented, we must ask: Does this evidence outweigh people’s convictions? Or would recognizing these crimes mean they’d have to deconstruct their entire worldview?”
OCTOBER 7 presented a radical shift in public response to terror, Montali said.
“Historically, when there’s a terrorist attack anywhere in the world, we all agree to condemn it. We call it barbaric. We say it’s terrorism. We’re not afraid to use the word. But here, we’ve witnessed a crazy inversion of language: Hamas somehow became a “resistance organization.” And I’m afraid of the answer – because the victims were Jews.”
He insisted: “Israel is not the aggressor. Just think – when the PLO was founded in 1964, the West Bank was Jordanian, and Gaza was Egyptian. And yet, the PLO already had the slogan “From the river to the sea.” And that same slogan is now used by Marxists, nationalists, Islamists, Palestinian groups, and terrorist organizations. What does it mean? It means a region free of Jews. In Germany, that would’ve been called “Judenrein” – free of Jews. No more Jews.”
“A cold strategist, Khomeini embraced the Palestinian cause in order to better instrumentalize it,” (page 54.) “With the added advantage of seducing the West: After all, how could someone who defends the victims of imperialism and Zionism be seen as a tyrant?”
Yet, despite international apologists for the crimes of the Iranian regime, “The vast majority of Iranians reject the regime,” said Montali.
“Recent estimates say around 80% of Iranians oppose the mullahs’ regime. We recovered a confidential popularity survey conducted at the regime’s own request, by the Basij – the regime’s paramilitary thugs who roam the streets in civilian clothes and arrest people at will.
The survey was conducted two years ago, and it showed 71% of Iranians opposed the regime. This was not an independent survey – it was commissioned by the regime itself. And it still showed 71%.”
The population, he said, is “tortured, massacred; in two-thirds of Iran, there’s no more drinking water, no more economic infrastructure. The regime – the Quds Force, the Revolutionary Guards – plunders all resources.”
Nevertheless, as Montali told the Post and writes in the book, the average age of the Iranian today is 32, and they are highly educated.
“The only thing that’s survived in Iran are the universities. These educated young people are connected to the outside world. They can see clearly that the theocratic regime of the mullahs is going against the tide of history.”
In order for the global progressive voice to recognize this and admit to it, “It has to admit that it’s been wrong about many things,” Montali said. “And more importantly, to admit that Israel was right.”
“And that’s where many on the far Left, Palestinian nationalists, and certain independence movements won’t go. They frame it politely as “anti-Zionism,” but really, it’s a rejection of Israel. And at the core, it’s antisemitism.”
The Iranian population, however, is not antisemitic. “I speak every day with Emmanuel, I speak every day with Iranians. I haven’t heard any antisemitic speech,” he said.
IN ONE of the book’s many interviews, Houchang, a 32-year-old bus driver in Shiraz, says, “We [Iranians] are paying for the murderous madness of the religious leaders who pretend that they are waging war on the Jews and Israel. But why fight them? The Jews and Israel have done nothing to us.”
“Frankly, the mullahs would be better off taking care of what’s happening in Iran, rather than supporting Arab militias.” Houchang continues.
“Around me, people don’t want to go to war with Israel. They know that, like us, Israelis are being held hostage by these terrorist groups.”
Hezbollah and Hamas, he says, “are the allies of our own tyrants.
Personally, I support their destruction. What Iranians want is to be free and to be able to work.”
Houchang laments that in France, “Students support Hamas or Hezbollah by equating them with resistance movements.”
“If students at the Sorbonne or Sciences Po experienced what we are experiencing in Iran because of the Islamists, they certainly wouldn’t support these groups. At this rate, France will experience what we experienced 46 years ago,” he told the Post.
Fifty-five-year-old Hassan similarly says in the book, “As Iranians, we don’t want to give money to Hamas or Hezbollah, I think they should be destroyed. I’m particularly shocked that French people support these groups. How can they be so fooled by propaganda?”
ONE OF the book’s key sources is a man who worked within the Iranian administration, in [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei’s inner circle. Montali and Razavi contacted him in April 2025, via encrypted messaging and VPN.
The source spoke in Tehran’s Octopus about Tehran’s objectives and the manipulations of Iranian intelligence services on French soil.
“I don’t think the mullahs consider France an enemy,” he said.
“In the media or publicly, they say that Europe and France are the enemy, but that’s rhetoric. In practice, the Islamic Republic has never severed its diplomatic ties with France, unlike Great Britain.
“France has invested billions of dollars in the Iranian automobile and oil industries and has never really enforced sanctions against the regime.
“France’s large Muslim community has a rather positive view of the regime. Iran’s relations with France are of a cooperative-rival nature, as with Turkey,” the source said.
But the message is chilling. In the section on Al Quds Force infiltrators, the book discusses how “In Paris, Brussels, and elsewhere, emissaries of the Islamic Republic of Iran participate in conferences where, with apparent neutrality, they relay to journalists and intellectuals captivated by such finesse, the messages of a country that, at home, bloodily represses popular protest.”
In universities, people talk of cultural openness while Iran silently produces drones and centrifuges and “dreams of a Shiite empire stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean.”
“Yet the executioners, even in white gloves, remain executioners,” the book states.
“And make no mistake: The terrifying Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards, soldiers of the strategy of chaos, is still active. It is the iron fist beneath the white gloves.”