Hundreds of former heads of government, cabinet ministers, lawmakers, diplomats, military commanders, and other senior political figures gathered at the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s annual Free Iran World Summit outside Paris, declaring Iran’s ruling clerical regime is now at its weakest point since the 1979 Islamic Revolution while insisting the NCRI has emerged as the organized democratic alternative capable of leading a post-regime transition.
The annual summit, held during the final weekend of June, was originally scheduled as a one-day conference following the movement’s planned mass rally in Paris. French authorities, however, imposed a last-minute ban on the outdoor demonstration, citing “security concerns,” prompting organizers to expand the conference into a two-day event at the NCRI’s headquarters in Auvers-sur-Oise.
The summit also coincided with initial implementation of the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between Washington and Tehran, reached after months of regional conflict. The agreement is intended to end hostilities while establishing a diplomatic framework for addressing Tehran’s nuclear program and other outstanding disputes.
Speakers throughout the summit argued that while diplomacy may help prevent renewed military confrontation, it cannot resolve what they described as the Islamic Republic’s deeper structural political crisis, insisting lasting change must ultimately come from the Iranian people and their organized Resistance.
According to an intelligence assessment submitted to the Paris Administrative Court and reviewed by Breitbart News, organizers had expected more than 100,000 participants, based in part on transportation requests for roughly 800 buses arriving from across Europe. Despite the last-minute prohibition, thousands of supporters still gathered at multiple locations across Paris, while the expanded two-day summit drew attendees from Europe and North America to hear nearly 100 current and former senior political leaders, ministers, parliamentarians, diplomats, and military officials outline what they described as Iran’s democratic alternative.
Delivering the summit’s keynote address, NCRI President-elect Maryam Rajavi declared that the clerical regime had reached what she described as “the final stop” of its rule, arguing that the wartime elevation of Mojtaba Khamenei following the death of his father, former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, reflected not strength but deepening internal weakness.
Reiterating the movement’s longstanding “Third Option”—neither foreign military intervention nor continued appeasement through negotiations, but the overthrow of the clerical regime by the Iranian people and their organized Resistance—Rajavi argued that neither war nor diplomacy alone can permanently resolve the threat posed by the Islamic Republic.
She urged Western governments to make any future engagement with Tehran contingent on ending the executions of political prisoners and the killing of protesters, arguing that only a democratic transition led by the Iranian people can pave the way for a free, secular, and non-nuclear republic.
Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson opened the summit’s international addresses by sharply criticizing French authorities for canceling the outdoor rally, dismissing official explanations involving security concerns and extreme heat as “all sorts of nonsense.” Calling the decision a capitulation to Tehran, Johnson said it was “wrong at any time to suppress a legitimate, principled demonstration of political opposition to the regime in Tehran,” arguing that democratic governments should amplify—not silence—the voices of Iranians seeking freedom.
Endorsing Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan, he described it as a roadmap for a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear Iran, expressing confidence that “the Iranian people will prevail.”
Former European Council President Charles Michel echoed Johnson’s criticism of decades of Western engagement with Tehran, arguing that “appeasement does not work—never,” and contending successive governments had repeatedly allowed the clerical regime to exploit diplomacy to buy time. Rejecting both military intervention and continued accommodation, Michel argued the Iranian Resistance had demonstrated that a democratic alternative to the clerical regime already exists, noting that few political movements anywhere in Europe could rally tens of thousands of people in the streets in the name of “democracy, freedom, and hope.”
Former Speaker of the U.K. House of Commons John Bercow likewise blasted the French authorities’ handling of the rally, calling the decision “a pathetic, abject, pitiful… surrender” that amounted to “playing the game of the mullahs in Tehran.” He argued that suppressing peaceful opposition demonstrations only advanced Tehran’s interests while undermining the democratic values Western governments claim to uphold.
Turning to Iran’s political future, Bercow rejected any return to monarchy, arguing the country’s future should be determined through democratic institutions rather than hereditary rule. Describing the NCRI as representing “a secular, modern, pluralist Iran,” he contrasted its vision with what he called “backward-looking, reactionary, [and] fossilized” alternatives rooted in the past. Reflecting on more than two decades in the British Parliament, he noted lawmakers frequently divided over foreign policy but said support for the NCRI, the MEK Resistance Units, and Rajavi had remained remarkably consistent across Britain’s major political parties. “We in Britain must redouble our efforts to give the National Council of Resistance of Iran the recognition it deserves,” he said.
Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba broadened the discussion beyond Iran, drawing parallels between Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression and the Iranian people’s struggle against the clerical regime. Condemning France’s decision to prohibit the rally as “deplorable,” Kuleba recounted arriving from Kyiv just days earlier after enduring another wave of Russian missile and drone attacks, noting that the drone technology had been supplied by Tehran.
“Like you, I know very well what it means to be attacked and killed and destroyed by the regime that currently holds its grip over the people of Iran,” Kuleba said, urging Iranians to ignore outside skepticism much as Ukrainians had before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Recalling his own participation in Ukraine’s 2014 Maidan Revolution, he argued history consistently shows that regimes built on repression ultimately fall while those fighting for freedom endure. “Believe, remain committed, and resolve,” he said. “Because if you do not believe in yourself, no one else will.”
Former U.S. Army Gen. and Trump envoy Keith Kellogg also argued that any long-term agreement with Tehran must be backed by rigorous independent verification. Pointing to the NCRI’s 2002 exposure of Iran’s clandestine nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak, Kellogg argued the group’s record demonstrated it could play an important role in verifying Tehran’s compliance independently should the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding advance to full implementation. Echoing President Ronald Reagan’s maxim to “trust, but verify,” he said the opposition could help ensure that “every barrel of uranium leaves, every centrifuge stops, and every promise on that page becomes a fact on the ground.”
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh shifted the discussion to legal accountability, arguing the Iranian Resistance’s members are not merely political activists but potential witnesses whose testimony could one day help prosecute senior regime officials for terrorism, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Drawing on his experience as both a federal prosecutor and FBI director, Freeh said holding individual officials personally accountable for decades of executions, state-sponsored terrorism, and other atrocities should become a central pillar of international policy toward Iran.
Other speakers, including former U.S. Ambassador Carla Sands and former Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird, echoed the summit’s central message that Iran’s clerical establishment has entered a period of unprecedented vulnerability while arguing that growing internal resistance has created a credible opportunity for democratic change.
In an exclusive statement to Breitbart News, NCRI Foreign Affairs Committee member Ali Safavi said the summit reflected “the Iranian people’s overwhelming rejection of the mullahs’ dictatorship” while highlighting what he described as growing international support for Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan and renewed calls to abandon decades of Western appeasement toward Tehran.
Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan calls for universal suffrage, free elections, separation of religion and state, gender equality, abolition of the death penalty, judicial independence, protections for ethnic and religious minorities, and a non-nuclear Iran living peacefully alongside its neighbors. NCRI officials say the platform has received support from more than 4,000 lawmakers worldwide, 130 former heads of state and government, 80 Nobel laureates, and a bipartisan majority of the U.S. House of Representatives.
The NCRI has long maintained that democratic change in Iran must come from the Iranian people and their organized resistance rather than foreign military intervention. The group also cites its decades-long record of exposing Tehran’s nuclear activities and other sensitive regime operations as evidence that it possesses both the organizational structure and intelligence network to help facilitate a democratic transition should the clerical establishment ultimately collapse.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.