Hassan Rouhani

Paris reported the arrest of Marchal, a senior researcher at Science-Po university, in mid-October, while his Franco-Iranian colleague Adelkhah has been in prison in Iran since June.

Tehran has given no official death toll, but Amnesty International said on Monday it had documented the deaths of at least 208 protesters.

Zarif met Oman’s Foreign Minister and spoke with the Taliban, but he and President Hassan Rouhani haven’t been seen much since the protests.

Italian daily 'La Repubblica' reported that the protesters managed to communicate where to drive and leave their cars to maximize the disruption using Waze.

If the matter had not been leaked to the media, he said, no one would have event notice, because the process had not gone on long enough to even constitute a delay.

The strong language by Rouhani was greeted with surprised at Tasnim, Fars and other news outlets in Iran. It is a rare admission of cracks among the regime members.

The Iranian president responded to the protesters, saying that "the voice of these young men is not the voice of the people."

“Despite America’s sanctions... Iranian workers have found an oil field with 53 billion barrels of reserves,” Rouhani said in a speech in the central city of Yazd.

Rouhani, speaking on state television, also said Iran would start working on more advance uranium enrichment centrifuges.

The MP told the Iranian Mehr news agency that “a video captured by cameras installed on the tanker show the attack was carried out by the US, the Zionist regime and Saudi Arabia.”