Foreign minister announces apparent reversal of France’s stance, saying Iran protest crackdown ‘cannot go unanswered’.France has said it supports the European Union’s push to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a “terrorist organisation”, reversing earlier opposition to the move.In a statement shared on social media on Wednesday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot appeared to link the planned designation to the Iranian authorities’ recent crackdown on antigovernment protests across the country.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list“The unbearable repression of the Iranian people’s peaceful uprising cannot go unanswered. Their extraordinary courage in the face of the violence that has been unleashed upon them cannot be in vain,” Barrot wrote on X.“With our European partners, we will take action tomorrow in Brussels against those responsible for these atrocities. They will be banned from European territory and their assets will be frozen,” he said.“France will support the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the European list of terrorist organisations.”EU foreign ministers are meeting on Thursday in Brussels, where they are expected to sign off on the new sanctions against the IRGC.The move, being led by Italy, is likely to be approved politically, although it needs unanimity among the bloc’s 27 member-states.Established after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, the IRGC is a branch of the country’s military that answers directly to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.It oversees the Iranian missile and nuclear programmes and plays a central role in Iran’s defence as well as its foreign operations and influence in the wider region. Advertisement While some EU member countries have previously pus …
