France is "closely following" the case of a woman student arrested in Tehran on Saturday for violating the country's strict dress code, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday, November 5. "I hail the courage of this young woman who demonstrated her resistance and turned herself into an icon for the women's struggle in Iran," Barrot told broadcaster France 2. "Our embassy in Iran is following her situation very closely and giving us hourly updates," he added.

The young woman stripped to her underwear in protest on Saturday after security guards harassed her about her clothing, ripping her headscarf and clothes. Footage published on social media showed the woman sitting outside the university dressed in just her underwear before defiantly walking in the street, to the astonishment of passers-by. Another video showed her being bundled into a car by men in plain clothes and driven off to an undisclosed location.

Amnesty International's Iran branch has called for the woman's immediate release.

Iran's conservative Fars news agency confirmed the incident in a report, publishing a picture with the student heavily blurred out. It said the student had worn "inappropriate clothes" in class and "stripped" after being warned by security guards to comply with the dress code. Citing "witnesses," it said the security guards spoke "calmly" with the student and denied reports that their actions had been aggressive.

Near-nationwide protests erupted in 2022 following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman who had been arrested for an alleged breach of the dress code. The protests, which saw women break taboos by removing their headscarves and on occasion even burning them, subsided in the face of a crackdown that left 551 protesters dead and thousands arrested.