Russian journalist Xenia Fedorova, against whom there was an expulsion order from France and whose assets were frozen last week, has been outside French territory for days, her lawyer Emmanuel Piwnica told the AFP agency on Monday.
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Fedorova, 45, and former director of the Russia Today television channel in its French version, is considered by Paris authorities as a Kremlin propagandist and an active part, at the media level, of the Russian interference campaign. The information that she is no longer in France emerged just on the day the Administrative Court of the French capital rejected the appeal against the expulsion and the freezing of her assets. According to Piwnica, his client is on vacation abroad and will only return if those orders are revoked.
In fact, Fedorova was already theoretically, since last Wednesday, in a judicial situation of “mandatory residence,” without freedom of movement, and had not expressed any desire to leave the Paris region nor had she asked the prefect for permission to do so. She simply stated that “the obligation to present herself periodically caused her discomfort.”
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It cannot be ruled out that the journalist’s flight was in some way tolerated, to avoid new diplomatic problems with Moscow. She had denounced being a victim of political pressure and opinion censorship. She defended herself with the argument that she had lived in France for ten years, “in respect of the law, paying my taxes and also having an opinion and expressing it within the framework of my work as a journalist.” Fedorova has collaborated with the television channel CNews, the radio Europe 1, and the Sunday newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, all media outlets of the group of the Breton magnate Vincent Bolloré, very skewed towards hard right and far-right positions.
Last Sunday, Le Journal du Dimanche published two pages defending its Russian collaborator. They included a long interview with former presidential candidate Philippe de Villiers, writer, essayist, founder of the Puy du Fou theme park, and one of the intellectual figures of the far-right sovereigntist sector. According to De Villiers, the expulsion order is illegal and a violation of human rights. He holds a very condescending and understanding opinion towards Russia in the Ukraine war. The popular mayor of Béziers, Robert Ménard, founder of Reporters Without Borders, who won his first election with the support of the far right, also expressed his support for Fedorova, although much more nuanced and critical of Russia, in an article. Ménard, who meanwhile has distanced himself from Le Pen’s party, admitted that Fedorova’s discourse “provokes him,” but it is a mistake to censor her because France then assumes the same behavior against freedom of expression as illiberal democracies.
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