French Nuclear Policy Towards Iran: From the Shah to the Islamic Republic

Since 2005, European and French foreign policy towards Iran have been caught between the change of Iran policy under Republican and Democrat administrations, on the one hand, and the Islamic Republic nuclear diplomacy on the other hand. To illustrate this argument, the article will provide a detailed history of Iranian-French relations, particularly pertaining to nuclear technology. The French discourse on a future nuclear Iranian threat reflects the dominant discourse within Western nuclear-weapon states on the nuclear ‘other’. Therefore, this article aims to shed light on the growing gap between France’s official nuclear ideology and the reality of internal and diplomatic developments of the Iranian nuclear program. I will deconstruct the official discourse produced in France on the Iranian quest for nuclear power to explore the complexity of the factors determining Iran’s nuclear choices and the conclusion of the 2015 Nuclear Deal.