Top French paper slams Moscow reporter’s ‘disguised expulsion’

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Top French paper slams Moscow reporter’s ‘disguised expulsion’

7:15 CAT | 07 Feb 2025

File photo: Reuters

Leading French newspaper Le Monde on Wednesday denounced the “disguised expulsion” of its Moscow correspondent Benjamin Quenelle, after his press accreditation was revoked.

Since launching its invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago Moscow has cracked down on the press, throwing domestic journalists and several Western reporters in jail and severely restricting coverage of what it calls its “special military operation”.

After four months of suspension, Quenelle’s press card was “cancelled” by the Russian authorities, Le Monde said.

“This revocation of our right to practice our profession is without precedent,” Le Monde’s editorial director Jerome Fenoglio wrote in a column written in both French and Russian.

“This arbitrary decision constitutes a new obstacle to the freedom of the press in the country,” Fenoglio said.

“Even in the tensest moments of the Cold War, Le Monde pursued its work in Moscow and beyond.”

Russia’s foreign ministry said Quenelle press credentials were not renewed in retaliation for France’s refusal to issue press visas to journalists from Komsomolskaya Pravda.

Paris accuses the journalists of being “agents of the Russian intelligence services”.

Among journalists to have been detained is Nadezhda Kevorkova, a Middle East specialist arrested in May 2024 and accused of “justifying terrorism” in two posts on her Telegram account dating to 2018 and 2021.

In March 2023 Moscow detained US journalist Evan Gershkovich before sentencing him to 16 years in jail on espionage charges Washington denounced as trumped-up.

The Wall Street Journal and ex-AFP reporter was freed in August 2024 as part of the biggest East-West prisoner swap since the fall of the Iron Curtain.

Source: AFP