On 3 August, a court in Paris dismissed an appeal by Russian TV presenter and former editor-in-chief of RT France, Ksenia Fedorova, against an order previously issued by the authorities requiring her to leave France, as well as against the decision to freeze her assets, according to French media reports.
The Paris Administrative Court ruled that Fedorova had failed to prove that her deportation from France would result in ‘serious personal consequences’.
Last week, the authorities ordered Fedorova to leave the country. Interior Minister Laurent Nunez accused her of spreading Russian propaganda with the aim of “undermining the fundamental interests of the state” and stated that her presence on French soil “constitutes, for this reason, a particularly serious and pressing threat to public order”.
Fedorova has stated that she will appeal against the French authorities’ decision. She believes this to be “an entirely new form of political pressure, with the sole aim of censoring opinions that do not conform to the official line”.
In January 2023, the French authorities froze the bank account of the Russian television channel RT, after which Fedorova announced that it would cease operations. She herself remained in France. She appears as a commentator in right-wing media outlets belonging to the media group of French billionaire Vincent Bolloré, including the Cnews television channel. According to many commentators, Fedorova continues to “parrot the talking points of Russian state media”. Fedorova’s employers and some conservative politicians had previously expressed bewilderment at the decision to expel her, calling it “a particularly serious violation of freedom of speech”.