Russia has banned two French lawmakers and two French journalists from entering the country, the Russian foreign ministry said on Wednesday, November 11, in a move Moscow presented as retaliation for France's expulsion earlier this year of a pro-Kremlin media figure.

Source: Al Jazeera

Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said lawmakers Sacha Houlié and Arthur Delaporte would be banned from entering Russia, along with journalists Paul Gogo and Ariane Chemin, according to Al Jazeera and France 24 reporting of her statement.

Zakharova said the bans were imposed over the alleged “harassment” of Xenia Fedorova, who headed RT France, the French arm of Russia's state-backed RT network, from 2017 to 2023. The harassment allegation is Moscow's claim; the four named French citizens have not been convicted of any offence in connection with Fedorova.

The four people banned

Sacha Houlié (lawmaker), Arthur Delaporte (lawmaker, Socialist Party), Paul Gogo (journalist) and Ariane Chemin (senior reporter at Le Monde).

France expelled Fedorova in July. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot described her as an “agent of influence”, and France 24 reported that the expulsion order was issued by Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez, who accused her of relaying Russian propaganda against France's fundamental interests.

Source: France 24 with AFP

Part of a wider pattern since 2022

Russia has banned dozens of Western journalists and lawmakers from entering the country since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Western governments have in turn expelled Russian diplomats and state-media figures in repeated rounds of tit-for-tat measures.

Entry bans of this kind are largely symbolic — none of the four French citizens was known to be planning travel to Russia — but they underline how far relations between Moscow and Paris have fallen, with media figures now treated by both sides as part of the wider confrontation over Ukraine.