French lawmakers invited the head of a previously shunned Iranian dissident group to parliament on Wednesday, aiming to help it gain credibility as a viable opposition to Tehran's government.

Speaking to members of a parliamentary committee on Iran [1], Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran [2](NCRI), said it was time her group was taken seriously as a force for democracy in Iran.

"The biggest political error in the West is to ignore the key movement of change in Iran," Rajavi told the conference.