Iran Influence Operations Via Paris Embassy Exposed

Iran’s influ­ence oper­a­tions via its Paris embassy have coor­di­nat­ed a decades-long cam­paign to infil­trate French polit­i­cal, aca­d­e­m­ic, and media spheres. On 4 Novem­ber 2025, the oppo­si­tion media out­let Iran Inter­na­tion­al report­ed that French think tank France2050 released a 120-page report detail­ing Tehran’s struc­tured sys­tem of infil­tra­tion through diplo­mats and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions, with embassy num­ber two Ali Reza Khalili respon­si­ble for estab­lish­ing influ­ence net­works, recruit­ing and direct­ing agents through the Fran­co-Iran­ian Cen­ter. The arti­cle begins:

Iran’s embassy in Paris coor­di­nat­ed a decades-long cam­paign to influ­ence French polit­i­cal, aca­d­e­m­ic and media spheres, accord­ing to a new report by French think tank France2050. The orga­ni­za­tion’s inau­gur­al 120-page report said Iran has main­tained a “struc­tured sys­tem of infil­tra­tion” in France for decades through its diplo­mats and cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions. The report com­piled by jour­nal­ists, his­to­ri­ans and for­mer intel­li­gence offi­cials, said Tehran had main­tained a “struc­tured sys­tem of infil­tra­tion” in France for decades through diplo­mats and cul­tur­al institutions.

Read more: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202511043411

Key Points

• Ali Reza Khalili, the Iran­ian embassy num­ber two and chief of staff to the ambas­sador, was respon­si­ble for estab­lish­ing an influ­ence net­work, recruit­ing and direct­ing agents through the Fran­co-Iran­ian Cen­ter, cre­at­ed in 2016, and host­ing con­fer­ences, cul­tur­al events, and train­ing ses­sions to iden­ti­fy and recruit poten­tial interlocutors.
• The report called the Iran­ian embassy in Paris the Euro­pean anchor of Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guards’ influ­ence oper­a­tions, serv­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly as a cul­tur­al cen­ter, pro­pa­gan­da unit, and coor­di­na­tion office for dias­po­ra sur­veil­lance and oppo­nent repres­sion abroad.
• Sev­er­al embassy staff, offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered with Euro­pean counter-espi­onage ser­vices, iden­ti­fied diplo­mats as belong­ing to Iran’s Min­istry of Intel­li­gence or the Quds Force, super­vis­ing insti­tu­tions such as the Cen­tre Cul­turel Islamique d’I­ran, described as a dis­creet but effec­tive relay for Tehran’s propaganda.
• The embassy direct­ed dig­i­tal influ­ence cam­paigns using social media accounts tied to Iran­ian state out­lets Press TV, Al-Alam, and His­pan TV, with recur­ring links between French-lan­guage net­works and the embassy’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions unit, aim­ing to cre­ate ide­o­log­i­cal con­fu­sion and erode trust in demo­c­ra­t­ic institutions.

Iranian Influence Operations in Europe: Intelligence Networks Target Dissidents Across Multiple Nations

Iran­ian intel­li­gence oper­a­tions across Europe have esca­lat­ed dra­mat­i­cal­ly, with author­i­ties doc­u­ment­ing sophis­ti­cat­ed sur­veil­lance net­works exploit­ing crim­i­nal prox­ies in Scan­di­navia and con­duct­ing tar­get­ed oper­a­tions against dis­si­dents and Israeli inter­ests. In July 2025, four­teen West­ern nations, includ­ing the Unit­ed States and the Unit­ed King­dom, issued a joint state­ment con­demn­ing the grow­ing num­ber of Iran­ian state threats, cit­ing the regime’s attempts to kill, kid­nap, and harass indi­vid­u­als in clear vio­la­tion of nation­al sov­er­eign­ty. Dan­ish and Nor­we­gian author­i­ties have iden­ti­fied increased Iran­ian intel­li­gence activ­i­ty using crim­i­nal net­works to con­duct sur­veil­lance and poten­tial ter­ror plots, while British intel­li­gence doc­u­ment­ed at least 15 Iran­ian-backed assas­si­na­tion or kid­nap plots tar­get­ing UK-based indi­vid­u­als since 2022, with threats now con­sid­ered on par with those from Russia.

The Islam­ic Repub­lic lever­ages mul­ti­ple oper­a­tional vec­tors through­out Europe. Italy’s cul­tur­al cen­ters and aca­d­e­m­ic pro­grams serve as oper­a­tional hubs where Iran has invest­ed over one mil­lion euros since 2009 to pro­mote Tehran’s polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy, while a ded­i­cat­ed embassy unit con­ducts cyber sur­veil­lance and intel­li­gence report­ing. Iran­ian dis­si­dents report being fol­lowed after protests, with fam­i­ly mem­bers in Iran sub­ject­ed to house search­es and direct embassy threats. Beyond phys­i­cal oper­a­tions, Tehran deploys sophis­ti­cat­ed bot net­works manip­u­lat­ing Euro­pean polit­i­cal dis­course, exem­pli­fied by 1,332 fake pro­files pro­mot­ing Scot­tish inde­pen­dence that gen­er­at­ed over 126,000 engage­ments before piv­ot­ing to pro-Iran­ian mes­sag­ing fol­low­ing the June 2025 nation­wide blackout.

The regime’s transna­tion­al repres­sion cam­paign extends across mul­ti­ple Euro­pean nations through coor­di­nat­ed net­works. Bel­gian author­i­ties warned MP Darya Safai of an Iran­ian abduc­tion plot alleged­ly tar­get­ing her for advanc­ing leg­is­la­tion to des­ig­nate the Islam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps as a ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tion. The Euro­pean Union respond­ed by sanc­tion­ing nar­co-traf­fick­er Naji Ibrahim Shar­i­fi Zin­dashti’s net­work, which car­ried out Min­istry of Intel­li­gence-direct­ed oper­a­tions includ­ing assas­si­na­tions in Turkey and the abduc­tion of Swedish-Iran­ian dual nation­als. Finnish and Swedish intel­li­gence ser­vices assessed that Iran con­ducts espi­onage to silence regime crit­ics while increas­ing­ly employ­ing orga­nized crime to tar­get dis­si­dents and Jew­ish inter­ests, with the U.S. Trea­sury des­ig­nat­ing the Swedish Fox­trot Net­work for car­ry­ing out attacks at Iran’s behest.

Exter­nal References:
• Joint State­ment on Iran­ian State Threat Activ­i­ty in Europe and North Amer­i­ca — U.S. Depart­ment of State
• EU Sanc­tions Tehran’s Transna­tion­al Repres­sion Net­work — Foun­da­tion for Defense of Democracies
• Thread­ing a Pre­car­i­ous Geopo­lit­i­cal Pos­ture, Iran Seeks to Wreak Hav­oc in Europe — The Soufan Center

Dis­claimer: The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) uti­lizes AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing the gen­er­a­tion of sum­maries for news items, intro­duc­tions, key points, and, often, the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, all images are gen­er­at­ed using AI and are intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.