(AFP) A French city on Thursday removed posters depicting Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after Tehran called the images “insulting,” in the latest incident in a period of strained relations between the two countries.
The southern city of Beziers ran a campaign on buses calling for selective sorting of waste using portraits of Iran’s Khamenei, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The posters — splashed with the slogan “Don’t forget to sort the trash” — sparked a forceful condemnation from Iran’s foreign ministry, which called the campaign “offensive,” according to the official IRNA news agency.
Beziers’ far-right mayor, Robert Menard, insisted the flyers were created in jest but ordered the posters removed as a “precautionary measure.”
