Paris —
You can’t escape from the tax collector. At least that’s how Benjamin Briere must have felt when he received the message everyone dreads after returning from three and a half years as a hostage in Iran. It turns out he didn’t file his taxes.
The return of two French nationals detained from Iran this month highlighted Mr Briere’s clashes with French officials upon his return to France in 2023, prompting French tax authorities to issue a public apology this weekend.
He said in an interview with French news outlet Le Nouvelle Obs in late 2025 that he had not completed his annual tax return for four consecutive years while incarcerated.
“But why?” he recounted what an official from the French tax authority (DGFiP) asked him when he was trying to start his life over again. “You can do it even if you’re in prison.”
“It’s not Iran,” Briere countered, adding that the official asked why his family had not filed the declaration on his behalf.
Brière told the website Journal du Net last week that he had no contact with his family during the first year of his detention. In the second year, approximately 15 minutes of phone time was given every 4 to 6 weeks. Apparently the unpaid taxes were not on his mind.
According to CNN affiliate BFMTV, the French man was traveling alone in Iran in 2020 when he was detained by security forces and later charged with espionage and anti-regime propaganda. He was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison.
The reaction of the tax official who first spoke to Mr Briere was “unacceptable”, and DGFiP said in a post on X on Sunday that the failure to assist was “completely contrary to our values”.
Briere’s situation was subsequently addressed by officials from another region, DGFIP said, adding that steps had been taken to ensure the situation was not repeated.
France has one of the highest top income tax rates in the European Union, and Briere’s treatment sparked commentary on social media in France, where some mocked the tax official’s pursuit of government taxes.
“Frankly, for the next hostage, we will abandon diplomacy and special forces. We will send a squad from DGFiP and bring back the taxpayers from any prison in the world in an instant,” one user posted on X.
Mr Briere is campaigning for special legal status to be given to hostages to better protect people like him. He said the French government took care of his inpatient treatment upon his release, but said there was no public support for his family during his detention or after his return to France.
French nationals Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris returned to France in early April after more than three years of ordeal in Iran.
Kohler told journalists that the pair “lived every day in fear” in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison, and thanked everyone who helped secure their release.
Kohler and Paris were charged with spying for France and Israel and were sentenced to long prison terms in October 2025. The French government said the two were being held as state hostages.
