REUTERS - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has
suggested that France should consider a prisoner swap if it
wants to secure the release of a French teaching assistant
charged with spying in Tehran.

Clotilde Reiss is on bail and staying in the French embassy
in the Iranian capital pending a verdict in a mass trial where
she has been accused of aiding an alleged Western plot following
Iran's disputed presidential election in June.

In an interview with France 2 television aired on Tuesday,
Ahmadinejad refused to be drawn on whether he would help Reiss,
but said pointedly that Iranians were also being held in France.

"Do you know that there are some Iranians who have been in
prison in France for years?" he said, speaking through a
translator.

When told that France wanted to see Reiss pardoned,
Ahmadinejad said: "Sadly, we haven't seen the French government
doing anything to help these prisoners."

Asked if he was blackmailing France, he said: "If we wanted
to blackmail anyone, there would be simpler ways than that."

He did not name any prisoners, but the highest profile
Iranian detainee in France is Ali Vakili Rad, who was found
guilty in 1994 of the 1991 murder of Shapour Bakhtiar, who had
served as prime minister under the former Shah of Iran.

Le Figaro newspaper reported on its website that French
authorities were considering the idea of freeing Rad. There was
no immediate comment from the French foreign ministry.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been highly critical of
Ahmadinejad, saying Iran deserved a better leader.

The Iranian president hit back on Tuesday, saying France
merited more than Sarkozy and accusing the French head of state
of interfering in internal Iranian affairs.

He also dismissed criticism in France of his assertion that
the Holocaust was a lie and a pretext for the creation of
Israel.

"Why isn't France ready to give some of its land to the
Jewish people?" he said. "If the French government feels so much
compassion for the Zionists, give them French land."