"Your family could have filed your income tax returns": the tax authorities' incredible response to a former hostage held in Iran

Released in May 2023 after more than three years of arbitrary detention in Iran, Benjamin Brière thought he would return to a normal life. But upon his return to France, a completely different battle awaited him: the bureaucratic machine. Removed from social security and employment services during his 1,079 days of captivity, he had to start from scratch in a veritable bureaucratic labyrinth.

The shock was even more brutal when he contacted the tax authorities. Eager to regularize his situation, the former prisoner explained that he had been unable to declare his income for several years due to his imprisonment in Iran. This justification, against all expectations, did not seem to suffice.

He was met with a response as cold as it was absurd: "Even in prison, you file a statement." And worse still, the final argument left him speechless: "Your family could have done it." A remark completely disconnected from the reality experienced by the former hostage, who had very rare contact with his loved ones, sometimes limited to a few minutes every two or three months.

Beyond the anecdote, it is an entire system that is being called into question. This situation illustrates a blind spot in the French administration: its inability to manage the return of citizens detained abroad in extreme conditions. For Benjamin Brière, it is a veritable administrative "no man's land," where no suitable procedure exists.

Without immediate resources, forced to fight to regain his rights and finance his medical care, he denounces a near-total abandonment by the state. This reality is all the more shocking given that these former hostages often have to cope with severe trauma, requiring specific support.

Now involved with the SOS Hostages association, he campaigns for the creation of an official "state hostage" status. The goal: to prevent those who have already suffered arbitrary treatment abroad from finding themselves, once back home, confronted with an equally violent administrative absurdity.