(Reuters) – Planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA) said on Thursday it had not been part of a visit by a French business delegation to Iran this week, the most senior French trade mission to the country in years.
“Nobody from Airbus Group participated in the trip,” Rainer Ohler, head of communications for the Airbus parent group, said.
A source close to the delegation had said the company had been represented in the team assembled by the main French employers’ association MEDEF, comprising more than 100 executives from France’s biggest firms.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday that the United States had warned France that French companies would be punished if they violated U.S. sanctions with Iran.
French finance minister Pierre Moscovici said the visit should not be taken as a “sign of laxity, endorsement” but as “a bet on the future based both on firmness and negotiation”.
France’s foreign ministry said that MEDEF had organized the trade delegation on its own initiative.
