In 1978, an ayatollah in Yvelines

In 1978, the Islamic revolution in Iran was being prepared… in Neauphle-le-Château, quiet town in Yvelines. Driven out of Iraq by Saddam Hussein, imam Ruhollah Khomeini, a severe opponent of the Shah, prepared his entry on the scene there for four months. His discreet presence is tolerated by President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, despite the reluctance of the secret services. France welcomes the opponents. Young Iranians visit the Ayatollah. Intellectuals, particularly on the left like Michel Foucault, are interested in this political-religious phenomenon which intends to debunk a monarchy friendly to the Americans.

When he returned to Iran in 1979, it’s the tsunami. Just ten days after his return, the shah’s regime fell. Khomeini becomes the Supreme Guide, arbitrating the divisions of a clerical class, quickly weakened by attacks. Iranians follow him on television when, from his modest house in Jamaran, above Tehran, he gives advice to his visitors. Next to him, his grandson Hassan, today an influential cleric, listens. Behind the calm tone, very rigorous religious prescriptions, the call to martyrdom while the nation is at war against the Iraqi aggressor, the struggles to be waged against the “big and small satans”, America and Israel. Ten million Iranians attended his funeral in 1989 with emotion.

The Islamic revolution will be exported, divide and devour his children, the excesses – corruption, repression – will spread but Khomeini will remain, for millions of pious Shiites, the model, a pure one, inspired by the Prophet.

In 2026, Iran is a country where heirs compete: it was Mojtaba Khamenei, son of Ali Khamenei, who was chosen as the new guide. To continue his father’s hard line. The other claimant to the succession was Hassan Khomeini. But this reformer grandson of the founder of the Islamic Revolution was not necessarily loved by the Revolutionary Guards. In the pro-American camp, they are even betting, among others, on the son of the once hated shah. But Reza Pahlavi has not returned to Iran for forty-seven years. He suggests managing “a transition”. But which one?