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Russian diplomats ejected from France must leave country within two weeks — source

On Monday, the French Foreign Ministry announced its intention to send home a group of diplomats

PARIS, April 5. /TASS/. The French Foreign Ministry has set a two-week deadline for the departure of Russian diplomats declared personae non gratae in Paris, diplomatic source in the French capital told TASS on Tuesday.

"The Russian diplomats expelled from France must leave the country within two weeks," the source said. According to him, the countdown has been underway since April 5. At the same time, the source found it difficult to name the exact number of diplomats being expelled.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Russian Embassy in Paris reported that Russian Ambassador to Paris Alexey Meshkov lodged a protest with the French Foreign Ministry against the announcement of Russian diplomats as personae non gratae, labelling it an unfriendly action. "On April 5, the Russian ambassador was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry, where he was handed a list of employees of Russian foreign missions, declared personae non gratae under a far-fetched pretext," the embassy said, "For his part, the ambassador expressed his strong protest against the unfriendly action by the French authorities and emphasized that it directly damages Russian-French relations, which are already complicated at the moment."

On Monday evening, the French Foreign Ministry also announced its intention to send home a group of diplomats. According to AFP agency, the ministry planned to expel 35 employees of the Russian Embassy. Russian Foreign Ministry has already said it will respond to this demarche by the French. Earlier on Monday, the Russian ambassador to Berlin had been summoned to the German Foreign Ministry, where he was notified that 40 employees of Russian diplomatic and consular missions had been expelled.

On March 29, a number of European countries, including Belgium, the Netherlands and Ireland, announced that they were expelling Russian diplomats amid the Russian special military operation in Ukraine. In particular, 21 Russian diplomats were expelled from Belgium, 17 from the Netherlands and four from Ireland. Earlier, a number of other EU states, including Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, also sent Russian diplomats home.

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