France has ordered Xenia Fedorova, a prominent Russian media commentator and the former head of RT France, to leave the country, with the Interior Ministry accusing her of acting as a conduit for Kremlin-directed disinformation campaigns aimed at destabilizing French public order, according to the expulsion order cited by the French newspaper Liberation.
Fedorova has been placed under house arrest since the order was issued and is required to report daily to a police station while her case proceeds, according to Euronews and France 24. Her lawyer has said she intends to file an immediate appeal against the expulsion.
Fedorova led RT France, the French-language arm of the Russian state broadcaster RT, until French regulators shut the channel down in 2023, roughly a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, over concerns about its role in spreading Kremlin propaganda. After RT France closed, Fedorova remained in the country and built a new media profile as a commentator within the media empire of French billionaire Vincent Bollore, appearing regularly on the CNews television network and Europe 1 radio station, and writing a column for Le Journal du Dimanche.
According to Le Monde, Fedorova was widely regarded as a protege of Bollore within that media network, and she has faced repeated accusations of promoting Kremlin talking points about the war in Ukraine and the West more broadly during her television and radio appearances.
Tensions between Fedorova and the French state date back to at least 2017, when President Emmanuel Macron publicly accused her of spreading defamatory falsehoods, an early sign of the friction that would eventually culminate in this week’s expulsion order. French officials have grown increasingly concerned in recent years about Russian-linked disinformation efforts targeting the country, including a campaign that falsely linked Macron to Jeffrey Epstein, according to a French government source cited by multiple outlets.
Fedorova’s employers, including CNews and Europe 1, expressed astonishment at the expulsion order and characterized it as a serious infringement on freedom of expression, according to reporting on the case. Disinformation researchers, however, have previously warned about the influence that commentators like Fedorova wield in French media ahead of the country’s presidential election next year, arguing that pro-Kremlin narratives have found an unusually receptive platform within parts of the Bollore-owned media network.
The case is likely to sharpen an already contentious debate in France over the balance between press freedom and national security concerns tied to foreign influence operations, particularly as the country heads toward a presidential election in which disinformation experts say Russian-linked narratives are expected to play an outsized role.
Sources: France 24, The Moscow Times, Euronews
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