Canceled Flight

Stopping the French

Tumultuous mobs surged around the red brick walls of the French embassy in Tehran, demanding "death" for President Franc,ois Mitterrand. Diplomats and businessmen and their families tried to get out, but as the first contingent of 61 arrived at Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport at 5:30 a.m. one day last week, a gang of Iranian militants blocked their way. Revolutionary authorities offered assurances that the evacuees would be released this week. But Ayatullah Ali Meshkini, one of his country's leading mullahs, warned that the incident could result in the French embassy being "taken over"; and the French humiliated the same way that Iran had "rubbed America's nose in the dirt."* To Americans, the series of events stirred painful memories of the 444-day U.S. hostage ordeal. But to the French, the latest targets of "revolutionary" Islamic vengeance in Iran, last week's episode came as an unexpected and brutal shock. In Paris, Socialist President Franc,ois Mitterrand canceled weekend plans and closeted himself for five hours with aides to discuss the crisis. Meanwhile, Foreign Ministry spokesmen at the Quai d'Orsay issued optimistic statements. Declared Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson:

"There are no French 'hostages.' " Ironically, no other industrialized country has tried as hard as France to stay on the good side of Iran's revolutionary regime. President Mitterrand was one of the few Western leaders to send congratulations to Iran after the July 24 election of Mohammed Ali Raja'i as the country's latest Islamic President. But France, the country that provided political asylum for four months to Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini and for years to some of his closest aides, two weeks ago gave haven to Raja'i's predecessor, the ousted Abolhassan Banisadr, and to one of the Iranian Islamic regime's most dangerous foes, Massoud Rajavi, head of the leftist guerrilla organization called the Mujahedin. Despite an agreement to refrain from political activity while in France, Banisadr has been issuing combative statements and preparing a government-in-exile.

The Iranian government has insisted that the French return Banisadr and Rajavi, a demand that the French, with their tradition of granting political asylum, will not accept. Last week Banisadr declared that he might go to Sweden or Austria to continue his anti-Khomeini campaign. Swedish officials quickly denied having any contact with the exiled politician. Sweden has nationals of its own in Iran.

* In Washington. Iranian demonstrators briefly occupied an Iranian diplomatic office. During the melee one of the protesters was shot in the back.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.