Russian diplomacy has accused France of violating “the fundamental principle of press freedom” and criticizes it for not having apologized to Russian journalists excluded from a press conference during the last G20.
Russian diplomacy summoned the French ambassador in Moscow on Monday to denounce the discrimination of which, according to it, Russian journalists are victims, accusing Paris of having roughed up correspondents during the G20 summit in India.
Ambassador Pierre Levy was summoned because of “the discriminatory and blatantly Russophobic actions of representatives of the French authorities against the correspondents of RIA Novosti and the editor-in-chief of Russia-News at the G20 summit in New Delhi”, he said. the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. They “were brutally refused access to a press conference by French President (Emmanuel) Macron”, he added.
Russian diplomacy has accused France of violating “the fundamental principle of freedom of the press” and criticizes it for not having apologized to the Russian journalists excluded, says Moscow, from the September 10 press conference and the French organizers of the event of having tried to seize the telephones of those concerned.
A precedent with the RT channel in France
Russia denounced the incident at the G20 the same day. At the time, the French presidency did not comment but a member of the delegation refuted accusations of discrimination and brutality.
“We had to refuse around thirty journalists of all nationalities due to lack of space in the room,” said this source, who did not wish to be identified.
A correspondent present at the press conference noted that the press room was full and that journalists had not been able to access it. Russia has long accused France of attacking representatives of its media, in particular because the Elysee refused to accredit the television channel RT for having spread rumors about Emmanuel Macron.
In 2017, the French president, welcoming Vladimir Putin to France, insisted that RT and the Sputnik news site were “organs of false propaganda”.
Source: BFM TV
