Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs
French foreign ministry, expelling Iranian embassy staff over the Tehran arrests.
On 18 August 2026, France's Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs issued a formal persona non grata declaration against two Iranian embassy officers and summoned their ambassador, the culmination of a month-long diplomatic dispute with Tehran.
Last refreshed: 19 August 2026
Why did the Quai d'Orsay expel two Iranian embassy agents in August 2026?
Timeline for Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs
Mentioned in: Paris expels two Iranian embassy agents
Iran Conflict 2026Background
France's Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs, widely known by the name of its Paris headquarters, the Quai d'Orsay, is the institution that conducts French diplomacy. It negotiates treaties, runs France's network of embassies and consulates abroad, and exercises formal authority over the accreditation and expulsion of foreign diplomats posted in France.
That expulsion authority rests on the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which lets a host state declare any diplomat persona non grata without giving a public reason. The ministry used it on 18 August 2026 against two Iranian embassy officers, the culmination of a diplomatic dispute that had built over the preceding month .
The episode illustrates the ministry's ordinary machinery in an extraordinary case: a written note, a formal declaration, and a summons delivered through protocol channels are the standard route by which French diplomacy ends a posting, whatever government or minister happens to be in office at the time.
The ministry expels two Iranian officers
On 18 August 2026, the ministry carried out its Article 9 authority to declare foreign diplomats unwelcome, issuing a formal notification revoking two Iranian officers' accredited status in France and summoning their ambassador to receive it in person. The action followed weeks in which the ministry's own account of an earlier incident in Tehran had hardened, from a detention to what it now called a premeditated assault .
That machinery, a written note, a persona non grata declaration, and a summons delivered through protocol channels, is the standard route by which a foreign ministry ends a diplomat's posting without going through any court. Iran disputed the sequence and used the same route in reverse, expelling two French staff the day after.
