Those hoping France might lead the way in salvaging the Iran nuclear deal were dealt an awkward blow on October 2 as the French announced that they had concluded that the Iranian intelligence ministry was behind a foiled bombing attack that targeted a rally organised by an Iranian opposition group near Paris in June.

News agencies quoted French diplomatic sources as saying that they believed a ranking official from within the ministry ordered the attack against the fringe Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MeK) organisation. He was named as Saeid Hashemi Moghadam, a deputy minister and director general of intelligence.

Paris said it had frozen the assets of Moghadam and Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi—who is set to be extradited from Germany to Belgium for prosecution—whom it described as operatives acting on behalf of Iranian intelligence.

A joint statement from France’s interior, economic and foreign affairs ministries, said: “A planned bomb attack was foiled at Villepinte on June 30. This extremely serious attack that was to take place on our territory cannot go without a response.”

It went on: “Without prejudicing the results of a criminal proceedings taking against the initiators, the perpetrators and the accomplices of this planned attack, France has taken targeted and proportionate preventative measures in the form of adopting national measures to freeze the assets of Mr Assadollah Assadi and Mr Saeid Hashemi Moghadam, Iranian nationals, as well as the Internal Security Directorate of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.”

The asset freeze was published in France’s Official Journal. It will last for six months. Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French foreign affairs minister, said the foiling of the bomb plot “confirms the need for a tough approach in our relations with Iran”.

Giuliani in attendance
The allegedly targeted MeK event featured senior US politicians among its guests, including Rudolph Giuliani, Donald Trump’s attorney. The MeK has no substantial support in Iran. It failed to establish a significant role in the country after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, went on to take Iraq’s side in the Iran-Iraq war and fell into obscurity after making its headquarters a compound in Albania.

The MeK was once listed as a terrorist organisation in the US and Europe—and remains so in Iran—and it is still widely viewed as a Marxist-Islamist cult built around the personality of its leader, Maryam Rajavi. Iranians are generally incredulous that any supposedly serious US politicians can show support for such an organisation.

Belgian authorities said in July that diplomat Assadi, who works for Tehran’s embassy in Austria, was arrested in Germany, while a married couple—Belgian citizens of Iranian heritage—were detained after their car was stopped near Woluwe-Saint-Pierre in Belgium by special forces and accused of an “attempt at terrorist murder and preparing a terrorist crime” against the MeK. Belgian media have reported that police found 500 grammes of TATP explosive and a detonator hidden in a toiletries bag.

Iran has denied the allegations made against it. According to a statement from its foreign ministry they were the result of a conspiracy to “sabotage Iran’s ancient and long-standing relations with France and other significant European countries”.

“We deny the accusations and forcefully condemn the Iranian diplomat’s arrest and call for his immediate release,” the foreign affairs ministry added.

Widening rift
Major power nuclear deal signatories France, the UK, Germany, Russia and China are opposed to Trump’s bid to tear up the agreement, which he unilaterally pulled the US out of in early May. But efforts to keep the deal alive without US participation could be undermined by a widening rift between Paris and Tehran. France has postponed sending a new ambassador to the Iranian capital and has advised diplomats and other officials to postpone visits to Iran.

The nuclear deal was drawn up to shield Iran from crippling sanctions in return for compliance with measures aimed at preventing it from taking a path towards the development of a nuclear weapon. Trump has launched a heavy economic sanctions campaign to try and force the Iranians to the table to renegotiate their role in the Middle East.

The EU is working on a special purpose vehicle mechanism that it hopes to introduce by early November to allow companies to continue trading with Iran without exposure to US secondary sanctions. Iran has to date gone along with the European-led efforts at saving the nuclear accord but there are plenty of hardliners in the Islamic Republic that would like to see Tehran exit the deal without further debate.

Iran’s ministry of intelligence is nominally part of pragmatic, centrist President Hassan Rouhani’s government, but it is essential controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is answerable to Khamenei, also has a powerful intelligence arm, which is sometimes in conflict with the intelligence ministry.

The MeK’s enmity with Iran’s rulers has earned it the backing of Giuliani as well as that of other Trump associates such as White House National Security Advisor John Bolton.

When Giuliani addressed the allegedly targeted rally in Paris in late June, the Guardian reported that only around half of the attendees were Iranian. The other half reportedly consisted of an assortment of bored-looking Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Germans and Syrians who responded to a Facebook campaign promising travel, food and accommodation to Paris for a mere €25. Hundreds of Syrian refugees settled in Germany also attended. Many snoozed under trees during speeches, the newspaper’s report said.

Regime change
Washington has repeatedly insisted that its economic assault on Iran is not aimed at achieving regime change but on September 22 Giuliani told members of Iran’s self-declared government-in-exile that the US sympathises with their efforts to overthrow the Iranian government.

The former New York mayor spoke to members and supporters of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), an umbrella coalition largely controlled by the MeK, at a midtown Manhattan hotel.

“I don’t know when we’re going to overthrow them. It could be in a few days, months or a couple of years, but it’s going to happen,” Giuliani said. “They are going to be overthrown. The people of Iran obviously have had enough.”

Giuliani said the NCRI was the democratic answer to an Iranian regime he referred to as “a group of outlaws and murderers and people who pretend to be religious people and then have so much blood on their hands it’s almost unthinkable”.

He added: “Iran is entitled to freedom and democracy.”

The White House says Giuliani does not speak for the Trump administration.