RT France TV channel announces its closure

RT France TV channel will stop its activities due to the blocking of accounts in France, informed editor-in-chief Ksenia Fedorova on Twitter.

“RT France funds are frozen at the request of the General Treasury Department in connection with the 9th package of sanctions, which does not apply to RT France. Our channel can no longer continue its activities,” she wrote.

Fedorova published a statement from the TV channel, which was also placed on the publication’s website. It says that “the authorities have achieved their goal – the closure of RT France.” “The channel’s 123 employees, including 77 journalists, are at risk of losing their pay in January and losing their jobs. In addition to the terrible economic consequences for many families, there is the question of the future of media pluralism in France, their representativeness, their independence – at least moral – freedom thoughts and expressions in our society,” the press release reads.

The statement emphasizes that the closure of RT France with the “tacit consent” of other media is a dangerous path, and other publications may follow in the same situation.

January 20 RT informed about blocking the accounts of the TV channel in France. With reference to the newspaper Le Monde, the TV channel said that this was done at the request of the main department of the treasury under the country’s Ministry of Finance. Then Fedorova noted that RT France does not appear on the list and has the right to work in the country, and the decision “virtually paralyzes” the activities of the TV channel, “the very fact of existence” of which “haunted” the French authorities.

The Russian Embassy in France also declared RIA Novosti that the blocking of the TV channel’s accounts is a blatant violation of the principles of freedom of the media, which goes beyond the EU sanctions against Russia. They added that even before the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine, the republic pursued “infringing on freedom of speech, a discriminatory policy” against the RT France television channel. Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya media group and the RT TV channel, commented on the information about the blocking. “This is Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite,” she wrote in her Telegram channel.

Since the beginning of the special operation on the territory of Ukraine, Russian media have repeatedly come under restrictions from the EU, the US and the UK. On March 2, the European Union announced the suspension of broadcasting of two Russian media – Sputnik and RT, including RT English, RT UK, RT Germany, RT France and RT Spanish. The broadcasting license of the RT channel was also revoked by media regulators in the UK, Austria and Canada. There are 36 accounts under YouTube restrictions, including RT, Rossiya 24, Sputnik, Zvezda, RBCNTV, etc.