The outcome was inevitable since the freezing of its accounts, the chain can no longer pay its employees or its service providers. RT France, the French branch of the Russian media RT, has announced its ” closing “, saturday 21 january. A few days earlier, the president and news director of RT France, Xenia Fedorova, had announced that “all the funds present on [le compte de la station étaient] frozen at the request of the General Directorate of the Treasury”.
That « [rend] impossible to continue our activitycan we read in the statement she tweeted on Saturday. After five years of relentlessness, the authorities in power have therefore achieved their goal: the closure of RT France. »
RT France funds are frozen at the request of the General Directorate of the Treasury, due to the 9th package of sanctions… https://t.co/vEpeOWRN2K
Earlier today, Moscow promised to take retaliatory measures against French media in Russia. “The freezing of RT France accounts will lead to retaliatory measures against French media in Russia. They will be remembered if the French authorities do not stop terrorizing Russian journalists.warned a source within the Russian diplomacy, quoted by the Russian news agencies RIA Novosti and TASS.
Friday, the trade unions of RT France had denounced the freezing of the accounts of the chain in France. “With this sanction, nearly a hundred employees and around fifty journalists will probably fall into unemployment”were moved in a statement by the union sections of Force Ouvrière (FO) and the Union of Journalists (SNJ) of RT France.