Moscow will retaliate against French media in Russia after the bank accounts of RT France, the French arm of its state broadcaster, were frozen, Russian news agencies reported Saturday. Hours later, RT France's director announced the closure of the channel.
"After five years of harassment, the authorities in power have achieved their goal: the closure of RT France," Xenia Fedorova said in a Twitter statement on Saturday.
She said 123 employees were at risk of not being paid for January and could lose their jobs because of the account freeze -- part of the latest European Union sanctions against Russia.
Moscow had already warned of retaliation for the move by the French finance ministry, first reported by the unions of RT France (previously known as Russia Today) on Friday.
"The blocking of RT France accounts will lead to retaliatory measures against the French media in Russia," the TASS and RIA Novosti news agencies quoted an anonymous foreign ministry source as saying.
The measures "will be remembered", the source said, accusing Paris of "terrorising Russian journalists."
The French finance ministry told French news agency AFP that the assets of the chain had been frozen in compliance with the most recent EU sanctions, and not on Paris's initiative.
Unlike the initial sanctions decided after Moscow launched its Ukraine offensive, fresh EU measures adopted in December provided for an "asset freeze" of targeted entities, the same ministry source said.
Among those entities is "ANO TV Novosti, a parent company holding 100 percent of RT France", the source said.
Broadcast ban
But an RT France trade union representative countered this, saying the order came directly from the French treasury.
"We received a letter from our bank on January 18 which said that our bank accounts were frozen at the request of the general management of the treasury," the representative told AFP.
"With this sanction, nearly 100 employees and around fifty journalists will probably end up unemployed," the trade unions FO (Force Ouvrière) and SNJ (Journalists' Union) of RT France said in a press release on Friday.
In July, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg threw out an appeal from RT France against a broadcast ban introduced by the EU shortly after the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine.
But the initial sanctions package only banned the broadcast of RT's content in the EU, not the production itself.
Until now, RT France continues to produce and broadcast content, which can be consulted despite the ban via a virtual private network (VPN).
Until a German ban in late 2021, France was the only EU country to host an RT branch.
Most Western media outlets are off-air in Russia and have seen their websites banned.
(with AFP)
