25 French Political Figures Call for the Immediate Release of Armenian Prisoners
On October 2, 2026, Le Figaro published a collective appeal signed by 25 French political figures from across the political spectrum, calling for the immediate and unconditional release of all Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan.
The appeal draws attention to the prisoners’ prolonged detention and isolation and stresses that lasting peace cannot be achieved without justice, freedom, and dignity.
Free Armenian Prisoners publishes below an English translation of the original French-language appeal.
“Free the Armenian Prisoners Held in Azerbaijan”: An Appeal by 25 Political Figures
By a group of contributors
FIGAROVOX/GUEST ESSAY — Twenty-five political figures from across the political spectrum, including Bruno Retailleau, Marine Tondelier and Édouard Philippe, are calling for the unconditional release of all Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan since the war that began in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020.
Most of them were arrested as they accompanied the exodus of their people during the ethnic cleansing that emptied Nagorno-Karabakh of its Armenian population in 2023. Twenty Armenians have been sentenced by the Azerbaijani regime to lengthy prison terms, with some receiving life sentences.
The fate of these prisoners, completely cut off from the outside world and left at the mercy of their jailers, has long been a source of profound concern. Some have been detained for three years, others for nearly six years, after being captured during the war launched by Azerbaijan against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh in the autumn of 2020.
The European Parliament and, less than two months ago, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives called for their release. In France, the Senate, the National Assembly, the Council of Paris, and numerous local and regional authorities have also adopted resolutions to this effect, often unanimously.
As part of this mobilization, an exhibition featuring portraits of the Armenian prisoners, organized during the first week of September by the City of Paris and the CCAF (Coordination Council of Armenian Organizations of France), helped draw attention to their plight and put faces to their names.
Deprived of their freedom, separated from their families, and kept out of the world’s sight, they are at the mercy of a prison system whose practices have long raised serious concerns. Their situation is all the more troubling because no independent international organization is currently able to visit them regularly and report freely on their conditions of detention.
There are also serious reasons to fear that their continued detention is being used as a means of exerting pressure on Armenia in order to obtain further concessions as part of the difficult peace process currently underway. If that is the case, these prisoners are also, in effect, hostages.
Faced with this unacceptable situation, we, the signatories of this appeal, echo the calls made by French and European institutions and demand the immediate and unconditional release of all Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan.
Finally, we reaffirm a simple conviction: in the Caucasus, as elsewhere, the peace we all hope for cannot be lasting if it is built at the cost of arbitrariness, humiliation, and oblivion. There can be no genuine peace without justice, freedom, and dignity.
Gabriel Attal — Renaissance presidential candidate, Member of Parliament
Xavier Bertrand — Presidential candidate, President of the Hauts-de-France Region
Luc Carvounas — Mayor of Alfortville
Éric Ciotti — Mayor of Nice
Nicolas Daragon — Mayor of Valence
Michaël Delafosse — Mayor of Montpellier
Grégory Doucet — Mayor of Lyon
Olivier Faure — Socialist Party presidential candidate, First Secretary of the Socialist Party, Member of Parliament
Gilles Giovannangeli — President of the Executive Council of Corsica
Raphaël Glucksmann — Place Publique presidential candidate, Member of the European Parliament
Thierry Lefèvre — Mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux
Nicolas Mayer-Rossignol — Mayor of Rouen
Christelle Morançais — President of the Pays de la Loire Region
Jean-Luc Moudenc — Mayor of Toulouse
Renaud Muselier — President of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur Region
Fabrice Pannekoucke — President of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Region
Benoît Payan — Mayor of Marseille
Valérie Pécresse — President of the Île-de-France Region
Édouard Philippe — Horizons presidential candidate, President of the Horizons party, Mayor of Le Havre
Bruno Retailleau — The Republicans presidential candidate
Fabien Roussel — French Communist Party presidential candidate, National Secretary of the French Communist Party
Ségolène Royal — Presidential candidate
Gilles Simeoni — Mayor of Bastia, Executive Councillor of Corsica
Marine Tondelier — The Ecologists presidential candidate, National Secretary of The Ecologists, Regional Councillor for Hauts-de-France
Martine Vassal — President of the Bouches-du-Rhône Department
