European justice on Wednesday rejected the request of the news channel RT France (ex-Russia Today) to cancel the suspension of its broadcast.
This was decided in the context of European Union (EU) sanctions against Russia due to the war in Ukraine.
Moscow immediately promised to retaliate against Western media.
The French situation was special because, since the suspension of RT in Germany at the end of 2021, France was the only EU member state to host a subsidiary of this Russian media on its soil.
In its decision, against which the Russian state media has announced that it is appealing, the EU court argues in particular that this "temporary ban" does not "call into question" the freedom of expression "as such" unlike according to Russian state media.
“Propaganda” for “Ukrainian Military Aggression”
“We are going to take similar pressure measures targeting the Western media working with us in the country,” reacted to the press Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for the Kremlin, the seat of the Russian presidency.
“We are also not going to let them work in our country,” he added.
These media should not expect "any flexible approach" from the Russian authorities, he warned.
He denounced an “attack on freedom of expression and freedom of the press in European countries, including France”.
Accused of being instruments of "disinformation" by the Kremlin, the media Sputnik and RT (including its French-language version RT France) were banned from broadcasting in the EU from March 2, on television and on the internet, after an agreement of the 27 members of the EU shortly after the start of the war.
In its judgment of this Wednesday, the court considered that "the limitations on freedom of expression of RT France (...) are proportionate, in that they are appropriate and necessary for the aims sought".
This is to prevent "propaganda" in favor of "the military aggression of Ukraine by the Russian Federation" during "broadcasts broadcast on television and on the Internet by a completely state-funded media Russian”.
These measures, "as long as they are temporary and reversible, do not disproportionately affect the essential content of RT France's freedom of enterprise".