French deserve better than their leaders: Iran's Ahmadinejad
AFP
PARIS, September 22, 2009 (AFP) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the people of France deserve better than their leaders, in response to similar comments by the French president after Iran's contested elections.
"The French people deserve better than their current leaders," he told France 2 television when asked by a journalist to comment on President Nicolas Sarkozy's recent remarks on Iran.
Sarkozy said on August 31 that Iranians deserved better after Ahmadinejad's hotly disputed re-election in June.
"The people of Iran deserve better than their current leaders," he said.
Ahmadinejad also said Iran could not grant amnesty to a French teacher accused of spying unless France was willing to reciprocate with help on Iranian prisoners in France.
"Unfortunately we have seen no action by the French government in favour of these prisoners," he told France 2.
University teaching assistant Clotilde Reiss, 24, was freed from a Tehran prison in August and transferred to the French embassy to await a verdict, after appearing in a televised mass trial on August 8.
She is accused of spying during post-election unrest in Iran.
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