French media groups Canal+ and Lagardère have condemned the French interior ministry’s order to expel Russian journalist Xenia Fedorova, calling it a serious attack on freedom of expression and media pluralism.
In a joint statement issued on July 29, 2026, the two companies expressed “astonishment” that one of their employees had been ordered to leave France immediately.
Fedorova, the former head of RT France who now appears regularly on CNews and Europe 1 and writes a column for the weekly JDNews, has been accused by French authorities of acting as a relay for Kremlin disinformation and posing a threat to public order.
The order, first reported by Libération and confirmed to AFP by the interior ministry, states that her conduct harms “the fundamental interests of the State” and that her presence in France amounts to a serious and present threat to public order.
The media groups rejected the implication that controversial political views should justify exclusion from public debate.
“Without everyone necessarily sharing all of Ms Fedorova’s analyses or opinions, the Canal+ and Lagardère groups consider that preventing her from participating in public debate and expressing her views on the situation in France and internationally would constitute a particularly serious infringement of freedom of expression and the pluralism of opinions,” the statement said.
The companies also invoked France’s constitutional protections for free speech, citing Article 11 of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, which guarantees the free communication of ideas and opinions.
“The Canal+ and Lagardère groups give their full support to Ms Fedorova in the face of this decision,” the statement continued.
“Freedom of expression is not defended only when the opinions expressed are consensual. It is defended precisely when they disturb or provoke disagreement, provided they form part of democratic debate, as is the case across all of our media,” they concluded.
Fedorova’s lawyer, Emmanuel Piwnica, told AFP his client would “immediately” lodge an appeal, describing the order as a serious infringement of the freedom of expression of a journalist who had always worked properly.
Since the order was served she has been placed under house arrest and has had to report to a police station once a day, according to a source close to the case cited by franceinfo.
Should she choose to remain in France, her residence permit would cease to be valid and she would no longer be able to work, the same source said.
Canal+ and Lagardère both sit within the orbit of the businessman Vincent Bolloré following the break-up of Vivendi, whose three spun-off entities were listed on December 16, 2024.
The Paris Court of Appeal ruled in April 2025 that Vivendi had been “controlled in fact” by Bolloré, overturning an earlier assessment by the French markets regulator.
Fedorova ran RT France until January 2023, when the channel closed after its bank accounts were frozen under EU sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
RT’s broadcasts have been banned across the EU since March 2022. Fedorova has appeared on Bolloré-linked outlets since the beginning of 2025.
Her position in the French media has been contested at the highest levels of the State for months.
President Emmanuel Macron has previously described her as serving Russian “state propaganda”, while the French foreign ministry has accused her of reproducing Kremlin narratives word for word.
The dispute sharpened in late May 2026, when it emerged that her residence permit had been renewed in 2024 for 10 years.
On June 2 the Socialist MP Arthur Delaporte called her a “destabilising agent” in the National Assembly and asked the government to open expulsion proceedings against her.
Interior minister Laurent Nuñez denied at the time that his department had intervened in the renewal, saying withdrawal and expulsion procedures were applied when the legal and regulatory conditions were met.
Delaporte welcomed the order on X, writing that impunity was over for Kremlin agents with a platform on CNews.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu had struck a more cautious note at a press conference on foreign interference on June 11, warning that banning everyone who spread propaganda others disagreed with would mean banning a great many people.
He set out a red line, though, saying that remaining in France required not harming the fundamental interests of the nation.
The National Rally (RN) has distanced itself from Fedorova while backing action against foreign interference.
Thomas Ménagé, spokesman for the RN group in the National Assembly, said on July 30 that her positions were not those of his party, singling out her reading of the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Ménagé told franceinfo there was an urgent need to protect France against interference and disinformation, arguing that Russia was seeking to weaken French interests at home, overseas and in Africa.
Fedorova’s appeal will be heard by the administrative courts, which have overturned expulsion decisions before. In February 2025 they annulled the removal of the Algerian influencer known as Doualemn, who was living in France legally.
