Several buses arrived at Place Vauban in central Paris despite police having banned the rally the previous evening.

Justifying their decision, the authorities had cited concerns about potential clashes with regime supporters “in the current particularly tense national and international context”.

Hundreds of protesters gathered for the demonstration aimed to raise awareness about a wave of executions in Iran during the Middle East conflict, an AFP correspondent saw.

Protesters chanted “Down with the dictatorship in Iran” and “French government, shame on you”.

Some held up portraits of Iranians executed by Tehran’s authorities.

Police broke the gathering using pepper spray, Afchine Alavi, a member of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), one Iranian opposition group, told AFP.

“They arrested about 20 people for no reason,” he said, adding that around 12 people had been injured. There had been no violence from the protesters, he insisted.

One protester, Shokouleh Majd, denounced the ban on the demo.

“It’s not us, it’s the mullahs who are the terrorists,” she said. And it’s us who are prevented from demonstrating to denounce the executions in Iran.”

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