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RT France announces its closure

According to editor-in-chief Ksenia Fedorova, RT France will shut down as the TV channel’s accounts have been blocked

© Zurab Dzhiavakhadze/TASS

PARIS, January 21. /TASS/. RT France will shut down as the TV channel’s accounts have been blocked, Editor-in-chief Ksenia Fedorova wrote on her Twitter page on Saturday.

"The TV channel’s accounts have been frozen at the request of the Directorate General of the Treasury (AFT) under the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance," Fedorova wrote. "Our channel can no longer operate."

According to the press release posted on the TV channel’s website, such measures made the TV channel’s operation impossible. "After five years of relentless work, the ruling authorities have reached their goal of shutting down RT France," the statement said.

Le Monde reported on Thursday that RT France’s bank accounts had been blocked. Later, the Russian Foreign Ministry told TASS that such steps would prompt tit-for-tat measures against French media outlets in Russia.

The European Union banned the RT TV channel and the Sputnik news agency in March 2022. On July 27, the European Court of Justice dismissed an appeal from RT France against the ban imposed by the Council of the EU. The court said that "those measures do not disproportionately infringe the essential content of RT France’s freedom to conduct a business since they are temporary and reversible." Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that the court’s ruling manifested the decadence of European values and the erosion of the EU justice system.

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