France backs IRGC terror designation after leak reveals Macron ‘in line’ with Trump
The European Union is set to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a “terrorist organisation” after France threw its support behind the move.
“France will support the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the European Union’s list of terrorist organisations,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X.
The European Union has held off on designating the IRGC a terror group, while Australia and Canada have followed the US’s lead. The Europeans have been divided, with Italy lobbying for the designation and France resisting.
Although a member of Nato, France has traditionally prized its independence from US foreign policy in the Middle East, where it has pushed for its own interests and often clashed with Washington.
For example, former French President Jacques Chirac opposed the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
France was also one of the top western advocates for the 2015 nuclear deal, which Paris saw as an opportunity for its firms to do business in the Islamic Republic.
France’s state-backed power company, EDF, nuclear firm Framatome, and TotalEnergies all actively sought out business opportunities in Iran after the accord was signed in 2015.
By agreeing to sanction the IRGC, France is now more in lockstep with the US and Israel, as US President Donald Trump threatens to attack Iran with “speed and violence” unless it submits to US demands.
‘We can do great things on Iran’
France’s U-turn may have been telegraphed earlier this month when Trump leaked a text message that his French counterpart, President Emmanuel Macron, sent to him, saying: “We are totally in line on Syria. We can do great things on Iran.”
The Middle East is on a razor’s edge as it braces for a fresh US attack on Iran, less than one year after it bombed three nuclear sites.
Middle East Eye reported on Monday that Trump was considering precision strikes on “high-value” Iranian officials and commanders it deemed responsible for the deaths of protesters during anti-government demonstrations earlier this month.
“As I told Iran once before, MAKE A DEAL! They didn’t, and there was ‘Operation Midnight Hammer,’ a major destruction of Iran,” Trump said on Wednesday in a social media post.
“The next attack will be far worse! Don’t make that happen again.”
As the US beats war drums, European countries appear to be falling into line. They are courting the US to continue supplying arms to Ukraine amid its war with Russia and trying to defuse tensions over the island of Greenland, which Trump mused about annexing.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Wednesday that Iran had “lost legitimacy” and it could fall in “a matter of weeks”.
“A regime that can only hold onto power through sheer violence and terror against its own population: its days are numbered,” Merz said.
“It could be a matter of weeks, but this regime has no legitimacy to govern the country,” Merz added.
‘Regime change’
The IRGC is an elite military force that operates independently from Iran’s regular army and answers directly to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In addition to its military activities, it controls a vast business and economic empire within Iran.
Joshua Yaphe, who previously served as the lead Gulf analyst at the State Department’s intelligence agency, told MEE that if the US follows through with an attack on Iran and pursues “regime change”, the IRGC is the organisation best placed to take power in Iran.
“The most likely outcome will be a soft coup by the IRGC,” he said.
Trump sanctioned the IRGC in 2019 and declared it a “foreign terrorist organisation” after unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 nuclear deal.
The designation allows the US to freeze any US dollar-denominated assets of the group or its members and impose secondary sanctions on foreign entities dealing with it.
Iran has imposed its own “terror designation” on US military officials in response, but the impact is negligible. US sanctions carry heft because the US financial system dominates the global economy.
