Russia bans two French lawmakers, two journalists in tit-for-tat move 

Russia has blacklisted two French lawmakers and two French journalists in response to France’s expulsion of a pro-Kremlin media network commentator earlier this year.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday that lawmakers Sacha Houlie and Arthur Delaporte would be banned from entering Russia, along with journalists Paul Gogo and Ariane Chemin.

Zakharova said the ban was for the alleged “harassment” of Xenia Fedorova, the head of RT France from 2017 to 2023.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot described Fedorova as an “agent of influence” and expelled her in July.

Fedorova, who wrote for right-wing French media, slammed “censorship” against her, while Moscow for months pledged to retaliate against “persecution”.

Ordering her expulsion in July, France’s Interior Minister Laurent Nunez had accused her of relaying Russian propaganda in an attempt to attack “the fundamental interests of the nation”.

Moscow has long bristled against European restrictions on its state-backed media and journalists, who Brussels and many countries in the European Union have slammed as Kremlin mouthpieces.

In a post on X, French lawmaker Sacha Houlie said: “What is intended as a sanction strikes me as recognition of my work against foreign interference in France.”

“From my report for the Parliamentary Intelligence Delegation to the law aimed at preventing interference that I had passed in 2024, right through to securing the expulsion of the Russian agent Fedorova,” Houlie added.

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.