France seeks new EU sanctions against Iran, even as Rouhani signs deals worth billions

France has asked its European Union partners to consider new sanctions on Iran for its recent missile tests, officials have said, even as Paris welcomed the president of the Islamic Republic, which is flush with funds from the lifting of other sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

The ambiguous signals emerging Wednesday from France came as President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate elected in 2013, signed billions of dollars in business deals on an earlier stop in Italy and met with Pope Francis in the first such Iranian foray into Europe since 1999.

France hopes for similarly lucrative deals during Rouhani’s two-day visit, along with regional peacemaking efforts as the once-pariah state emerges from decades of isolation.

But amid the courting of Iran, two officials from EU nations said the request for new sanctions came shortly after the EU and the US lifted sanctions on Tehran on January 16 in exchange for UN certification that Iran had scaled back its nuclear programmes. Iran said those programmes were peaceful but critics feared it wanted to build nuclear weapons.

The two officials said the French request came after the United States had imposed new sanctions on Iran over the firing of a medium-range ballistic missile.

The two officials said the French proposal is formally under EU review, but most other EU members view it as counterproductive to efforts to revive political and economic ties with Iran after the long chill over the nuclear dispute. The officials, who were briefed on the issue, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the issue publicly.