Paris
There’s no escape from the tax collector. At least that’s what Benjamin Brière should have felt after his return from three and half years as a hostage in Iran when he bought that message that all of us dread: he hadn’t filed his taxes.
The return of two French detainees from Iran this month has highlighted Brière’s run-in with French paperwork upon his personal return to France in 2023, sparking a public apology this weekend from the French tax authority.
During his imprisonment, he didn’t full his annual tax declarations for 4 years working, he mentioned in an interview with French outlet Le Nouvel Obs in late 2025.
“But why sir?” he recounted the official from France’s tax authority (DGFiP) asking him as he sought to restart his life. “Even in prison you can do it.”
“Not in Iran,” Brière retorted, including that the official then requested why his household had not finished the declarations on his behalf.
Brière instructed the Journal du Net website final week that for the primary 12 months of his detention he had no contact in any respect together with his household; within the second 12 months he was given some quarter-hour by telephone each 4 to 6 weeks. Back taxes evidently weren’t on his thoughts.
The Frenchman was travelling by way of Iran alone in 2020 when he was detained by safety forces and later accused of espionage and propaganda in opposition to the regime, in accordance with NCS affiliate BFMTV. He was sentenced to eight years and eight months in jail.
The response from the tax official who initially spoke with Brière was “unacceptable,” the DGFiP mentioned in a submit on X on Sunday, and the failure of help was “entirely contrary to our values.”
Brière’s scenario was subsequently taken care of by an official in one other area, the DGFIP mentioned, including that it has put measures in place to make sure no repeat of this example.
France has one of many highest high earnings tax charges within the European Union and Briere’s therapy sparked a flurry of social media commentary in France, with some poking enjoyable on the taxman’s pursuit of the federal government’s dues.
“Frankly, for the next hostages, we drop the diplomacy and the special forces. We send in a squad from the DGFiP that’ll bring back the taxpayer in a flash from any jail anywhere in the world,” one person posted on X.
Brière is campaigning for hostages to be given a particular authorized standing to raised defend individuals like him. While he mentioned the French authorities took care of his hospital therapy upon his launch, he mentioned there was no official administrative help for his household throughout his detention nor for him upon his return to France.
French residents Cécile Kohler and Jacques Paris returned to France in early April after a greater than three-year-long ordeal in Iran.
Speaking to journalists, Kohler mentioned that the pair had “lived daily horrors” on the notorious Evin jail in Tehran, and thanked everybody who had helped to safe their launch.
Kohler and Paris have been accused of spying for France and Israel and sentenced to prolonged jail phrases in October 2025. The French authorities mentioned they have been held as state hostages.