Like their counterparts in Los Angeles and Toronto, also high places of the Iranian diaspora, the activists marched from Place de la République to Place de la Nation, the traditional route of major Parisian movements.
The demonstrators chanted the slogans «Join the first feminist revolution!» and «Mahsa Amini, your name has shaken the tyranny of the ayatollahs», despite some heavy downpours. «Death to the Islamic Republic», «Death to the dictator» and «Woman. Life. Freedom», the code of demonstrations in Iran, were also heard.
At least 92 people have been killed in Iran by the crackdown on protests that erupted two weeks ago after the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested by morality police, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR).
President Ebrahim Raisi has again accused Iran’s «enemies» of «conspiring» against his country, saying their attempts have «failed» as anti-government protests, the largest since 2019, continue.
The protest movement was sparked by the death on September 16 of the 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, three days after her arrest for violating the country’s dress code, which notably requires women to wear the veil.
«For once, women are rising up and are accompanied by men. It’s really time to try to change things. They go out, but they get killed. We are lucky to be able to demonstrate and fight for them. So we will come,» said Guilda Torabi, a student of Iranian origin.
«Now Iran has become a big prison. The Internet is cut off and now we are the voice of the Iranians», denounced Toura Dana, a Franco-Iranian engineer.
Left-wing personalities including the first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, the ecologist deputy Sandrine Rousseau and the LFI (radical left) MEP Manon Aubry took the floor, covered by whistles from an Iranian diaspora known for its political diversity.
The demonstrators also protested when the recent meeting in New York, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, between French President Emmanuel Macron and his Iranian counterpart Ebrahim Raïssi was mentioned.
«The French government flirts with the Mullahs while the Mullahs kill the women,» read a slogan alongside a photo of the two men shaking hands.
