The Franoc-Iranian Rapprochement
After the agreement for Iran’s nuclear program the Iranians and the French closed multi-billion dollar deals. The French Total agreed to buy Iranian oil and the Iranians agreed to buy many French Airbuses. Moreover the French state-owned railway company, together with the Italian one, will renovate the Iranian railways. The French state-owned Peugeot will also open a factory in Iran to sell cars to the Iranian people. See Euronews “France and Iran Agree 15 Billion Euros worth of Business Deals”, January 2016.
Moreover Iran is seeking 60 billion dollars from the French Total and the Japanese Mitsui, in order to double its petrochemical production i.e. plastic production and other derivatives of oil.
Similar agreements were made between Iran and Italy. See Italy24 “Italian companies sign deals worth €16-17 billion with Iran”, January 2016.
As a result the first visit of an Iranian President to France was a reality, and the two countries agreed to jointly fight terrorism. I guess that means Iran will not support rebel groups against France in West Africa. See “Iran and France agree to cooperate to fight terrorism and resolve world crises”, January 2016.
But Iran said that to cooperate with France on terrorism France must realize that fighting terrorism is equally important in Syria, and the question is not who the president of Syria will be. Remember that France is an Arab ally and France wanted a NATO operation to overthrow the Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad who is a very strong Iranian ally. Also remember that France has a military base in the United Arab Emirates, and France sells to the Arabs weapons worth billions of dollars.
We have to wait and see whether France and Iran can cooperate in Syria and West Africa, and how this is going to affect the alliance between France and the Arabs.