France summons Iran’s ambassador over supermarket fridge ‘sabotage’

France says it has summoned Iran’s ambassador to Paris “to lodge a very strong protest” after it accused Tehran of carrying out a major cyberattack targeting supermarket fridges last month. “It marks the first large-scale cyberattack aimed at sabotage on our national territory, and it constitutes a major attack on the nation’s interests and the security of the French people,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on Tuesday.

“I can also tell you that we rule nothing out and will take all measures – including those we may not disclose publicly – that we deem proportionate and necessary to deter any further attacks,” he added. Barrot, speaking on France Info ‌‌television, said the government would push for European Union sanctions in response to what he called an “attack of unprecedented scale and aggression in our country”.

On Monday, Barrot said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was behind cyberattacks targeting more than 700 French supermarkets on October 11 and 12, when refrigerators were remotely accessed “to initiate abnormal, indefinite defrost cycles”.