Press TV - Iran has rejected France’s interference in its internal affairs as unacceptable, saying Tehran will not tolerate Paris' meddlesome remarks.

In a post on his Twitter page on Wednesday, Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi dismissed President Emmanuelle Macron’s call for Tehran to free two jailed French nationals.

“The French should not forget that Iran is a sovereign state. Neither our government nor the judiciary will take any advice from anyone,” Mousavi said on Wednesday. “Any interference in Iran’s domestic matters is unacceptable to us," he added.

On Tuesday, Macron said the imprisonment of two French nationals in Iran was unbearable and demanded their immediate release.

“On Human Rights Day, my thoughts go to Fariba Adelkhah and Roland Marchal, our compatriots held in Iran, and their families,” Macron said on Twitter.

“Their imprisonment is intolerable. They must be freed without delay. I told President Rouhani, I repeat it here,” he wrote.

Adelkhah, a 60-year-old anthropologist and researcher at Sciences Po's Center for International Studies (CERI) in Paris, and her colleague Marchal were arrested in Iran in June on espionage charge.

In October, Mousavi said that Iran’s national law does not recognize the dual citizenship of Iranian citizens, and thus Adelkhah is regarded as an Iranian national.



He, however, said that as an Iranian national, she enjoys full citizenship rights, adding that the Iranian Judiciary is carefully pursuing her case within the framework of the country’s fair trial law.

Macron’s appeal followed a prisoner swap at the weekend between Iran and the United States.

Iranian stem cell scientist Masoud Soleimani, who had been held in the US for allegedly breaching sanctions, was released by the US on Saturday in exchange for Xiyue Wang — a Chinese-born US citizen who had been sentenced to 10 years in prison for espionage in Iran in 2017.