This Saturday, Russia warned that it would retaliate against French media outlets in response to the French blocking of the bank accounts of the Russian TV channel RT France.
“The blocking of RT France accounts will lead to retaliatory measures against French media in Russia,” said a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, quoted by the official RIA Novosti agency.
The spokesman stressed that “if the French authorities do not stop terrorizing Russian journalists, [as medidas] will be such that you will remember them for a long time.
The director of RT France, Ksenia Fedorova, said on Telegram on Friday that the channel’s bank accounts had been frozen by the French authorities, who justified the decision with a new package of EU sanctions against Russia for the military campaign in Ukraine adopted in December. 2022.
Fedorova said on Telegram that the measure would “virtually paralyze” RT France, which, he added, “is not on any list and has the right to operate in France.”
Accused by the Kremlin of being tools of disinformation and propaganda, Sputnik and RT media outlets, including its French version RT France, have been banned from broadcasting in the EU, whether on TV or online, with RT since March 2. France has decided to challenge the broadcast suspension in the Court of Justice, arguing that it violates freedom of expression, which is contrary to EU law.
On July 27, 2022, the General Court of the European Union rejected the appeal of the Kremlin-controlled news channel RT France (formerly Russia Today) against the suspension of broadcasts adopted as part of European sanctions against Moscow.
In a published ruling, the court finds that the “temporary and reversible ban” on the broadcasts of RT France, the French subsidiary of the Russian international news channel, does not jeopardize freedom of expression, as the channel claims, and is “proportionate.” to the extent “relevant and necessary” to achieve the objective of the restrictive measures imposed by the EU against Russia for its military aggression against Ukraine.