Propaganda beyond RT: how Russian influence adapts to media sanctions in France

At Versailles in May 2017, Xenia Fedorova asked Emmanuel Macron why journalists from RT and Sputnik had been denied access to his presidential campaign. Macron rejected the premise of her question.

He said that he had always maintained exemplary relations with foreign journalists, "provided they are journalists". RT and Sputnik, he continued, had acted as organs of influence and propaganda by spreading false claims during the election.

Fedorova responded that the accusation threatened press freedom. RT France had yet to launch its television channel. She invited its critics to judge the organisation by its future work rather than by suspicions about its Russian funding.

Nine years later, the argument has returned almost unchanged. The institution around it has not.

The European Union suspended RT France’s broadcasting activities after Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine. The French-Russian media closed in January 2023.

Fedorova subsequently became a contributor to CNews, Europe 1 and JDNews, major French media outlets owned by Vincent Bolloré. The Russian state logo may have disappeared, but Fedorova, its former director, was now speaking through established French brands.

The French government ordered Fedorova’s expulsion on 29 July 2026 and froze her assets two days later. It accused her of relaying disinformations campaigns directed by the Russian authorities and of threatening France’s fundamental interests. Fedorova, who was already abroad, denounced political censorship. Canal+ and Lagardère, her employers, described the measures as a grave attack on freedom of expression and pluralism.

A Paris court rejected her first emergency application on 3 August.

It did not examine whether the government’s accusations were true or whether the expulsion was lawful. The judge found only that Fedorova had failed to demonstrate the extreme urgency required by the procedure she had chosen.

The surrounding editorial sequence was revealing. On 2 August, the Journal du Dimanche published a long interview with Iuliia Mendel, Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s former spokesperson, presenting her as a Ukrainian "dissident". She accused the president of turning the war into the basis of his political survival, benefiting from its continuation and presiding over an increasingly autocratic state.

Two days later, the same publication carried Fedorova’s defence against the French government.

There is no hard evidence that Mendel works for Russia, that the two publications were coordinated or that Moscow instructed the editors involved. The pattern raises a different concern.

Russian influence no longer needs to arrive as an identifiable transmission from Moscow. It can move through French editorial decisions, domestic political interests and speakers whose authority conceals the origins or weaknesses of the claims they repeat.

France succeeded in removing RT France from the air. It has found it far harder to respond when comparable narratives are chosen, translated and legitimised by French media themselves.

And this is precisely such a case. The appearance on the same platforms of Iuliia Mendel, Zelenskyy’s former spokesperson, who has consistently promoted narratives that align with Russian messaging, offers a further illustration of the problem.

How Russia Today was shut down

RT France began broadcasting in December 2017. Its launch followed months of criticism from French politicians, journalists and regulators, but the channel was not prohibited. Macron’s comments at Versailles were a political judgement, not a legal ruling.

Fedorova insisted that RT would offer a neglected perspective. Its French slogan, "Dare to question", distilled a broader strategy.

RT did not present itself as the official voice of the Russian state. It claimed to be an alternative to a conformist Western media establishment.

That distinction was central to its appeal. A broadcaster openly defending every Kremlin decision would have struggled to build a significant French audience.

RT instead concentrated on the failures, contradictions and resentments of Western democracies. It recruited French journalists and commentators. It covered domestic protests, police violence, social divisions and distrust of political elites. Its Russian origin became part of its outsider identity rather than an embarrassment to be hidden.

The operation was substantial.

RT France employed about 170 people and was the largest foreign bureau in the RT network, according to Maxime Audinet, a researcher at France’s National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilisations who has studied the organisation extensively.

RT did not need to persuade French audiences that Vladimir Putin was a benevolent leader. Its more realistic objective was to weaken trust in the institutions challenging him. It portrayed Western governments as deceptive, established media as selective, and factual certainty as impossible.

The aim was not always to replace one version of events with another, but to blur the distinction between evidence and interpretation. Russian policy benefited whenever audiences concluded that every account was equally unreliable.

The EU acted against the institutional machinery behind that influence in March 2022. The Council suspended RT and Sputnik broadcasting, arguing that both outlets were controlled, directly or indirectly, by the Russian state and used to justify the invasion and manipulate public opinion.

The General Court of the European Union later upheld the decision. It found that, given the exceptional circumstances created by the war, the temporary restriction was proportionate.

RT France was initially able to continue producing content, even though it could no longer broadcast normally in the EU. Its French operation closed in January 2023 after its bank accounts were frozen.

But what happened to those who worked for Russian propaganda?

Without the Russian "stigma"

Audinet’s research identifies several former RT France employees who later joined outlets linked to the Bolloré media sphere. Stéphanie de Muru appeared on Europe 1. Olivier de Keranflec’h and Thomas Bonnet joined CNews.

Other former RT figures found places at publications such as Valeurs actuelles or Omerta, the media organisation founded by former RT France journalist Régis Le Sommier after the EU ban.

These trajectories are not evidence of a coordinated Russian deployment. Journalists who lose their jobs seek new employers, and previous employment at RT does not make every subsequent piece of work propaganda.

Yet the concentration is politically significant. Audinet argues that the Bolloré ecosystem recruited more former RT France personnel than any other major French media group.

Fedorova’s path was the most consequential. According to reporting cited by Audinet, discussions about recruiting her began in 2023. Her public integration followed in early 2025.

She wrote for JDNews, appeared regularly on CNews and Europe 1, promoted a book published by Fayard and later presented a programme on Orthodox Christianity on CNews and CStar.

The arrangement gave her something RT France could never fully possess: the legitimacy of a domestic platform.

On RT, every statement carried the visible burden of Russian state financing. On CNews or Europe 1, Fedorova appeared as one commentator among others in a French debate. Her position could be introduced as dissent, contrarian analysis or the Russian perspective excluded by supposedly conformist competitors.

Her potential audience also grew. Audinet observed that some of her television appearances reached hundreds of thousands of viewers. ACPM, the French press measurement body, estimated that JDNews had 678,000 readers during the first half of 2026. 

What Russian propagandists are promoting in France

Audinet and his research team analysed 44 columns published by Fedorova in JDNews between January 2025 and May 2026. Their findings complicate the caricature of a propagandist repeating instructions in every article.

The largest group of texts concerned religion and Orthodox heritage. Fedorova also wrote about culture, identity and freedom of expression. Reducing all of her work to the war would be inaccurate.

The political pattern emerged across the wider corpus. One significant group of columns presented French debate as constrained by censorship, double standards and an alleged monopoly over legitimate information. Other texts addressed negotiations with Russia, European military policy, support for Ukraine and the economic cost of rearmament.

The subjects were usually real.

The argumentative sequence was more revealing than any isolated falsehood.

Corruption exists in Ukraine. Ukrainian journalists, civil society organisations and anti corruption institutions have exposed serious cases involving public procurement, the energy sector and members of the political elite. European support should be audited. Zelenskyy’s government is not exempt from scrutiny because the country is at war. 

Fedorova’s columns begin from these legitimate premises, before giving way to falsehood

In May, she described Ukrainian corruption as a taboo that European governments and journalists had concealed to protect Zelenskyy’s heroic image.

Public assistance presented as an economic sacrifice imposed on Europeans without democratic consent. Individual scandals became evidence that the wider policy of supporting Ukraine had been insulated from honest debate.

The transformation is subtle. A demand for accountability turns into an allegation of systematic deception by European institutions.

The person raising the issue is cast as courageous precisely because the issue is said to have been forbidden. Criticism of the argument can then be presented as further proof of censorship.

A similar structure appears in her writing about peace. In April, Fedorova argued that Europe financed war rather than diplomacy.

In June, she asked whether European governments genuinely wanted peace or preferred to prolong the conflict by setting conditions that Russia would reject.

Negotiations, ceasefires and the human costs of continued war are legitimate subjects of political disagreement.

The distortion lies in the distribution of agency. Russia’s decision to invade, its territorial demands and its repeated rejection of an independent Ukrainian strategic choice recede from view.

European assistance became the principal engine of continuation of war. Ukraine’s refusal to accept imposed terms is recast as evidence that the West has obstructed peace.

The French setting gives that chain particular force. 

Appeals for distance from NATO can be attached to the Gaullist language of strategic independence.

Opposition to European defence spending can be linked to debt, weakened public services and rising immigration issues. Calls for renewed relations with Moscow can be presented as a recovery of French sovereignty from Brussels and Washington.

These are domestic French arguments. They also serve Russian strategic interests by weakening the political basis for military assistance to Ukraine and presenting European resistance to aggression as submission to a foreign agenda.

Direct control would be easier to prove and easier to regulate. Convergence is more difficult. 

A French owner or editor may promote these arguments for reasons that have little to do with Russia: competition with rival broadcasters, hostility to Macron, Euroscepticism, conservative politics or the commercial appeal of permanent controversy.

Audinet therefore avoids describing Fedorova as a Russian "agent", a term that suggests clandestine instruction. He calls her an actor in Russian influence.

Her history at RT is documented, as are the narratives she promotes. A secret command structure has not been publicly established.

Mendel comes to the aid of the Kremlin’s friends

Iuliia Mendel’s interview offers a different version of the same process.

Mendel is Ukrainian. She was selected as Zelenskyy’s press secretary in 2019 and worked with him for two years.

Her experience gives her genuine authority when discussing the early presidency, its personalities and its internal culture. Mendel left the post in July 2021, more than seven months before the full scale invasion. 

Her political evolution was gradual. In a book published in 20212, she described Zelenskyy as a source of hope and praised his leadership. She continued to support Ukrainian resistance and Western assistance during the first period of the invasion. From late 2024 onwards, her writing increasingly focused on exhaustion, corruption, institutional concentration and the need for a ceasefire.

The tone hardened considerably. During an interview with Tucker Carlson on 11 May 2026, Mendel called Zelenskyy an obstacle to peace and suggested that he might use drugs, while admitting that she had never personally witnessed him doing so.

Carlson did not seriously challenge the allegation. Mendel said that she had approached him because she wanted access to his audience.

She also made claims about decisions and behaviour during the war that were not based on her own presence.

Her account of Zelenskyy’s alleged reaction to the Bucha massacre, repeated in the JDD, came from an unnamed acquaintance who said they had spoken to him. The story was presented as proof of his true character.

The JDD introduced Mendel as a dissident and foregrounded her accusations of corruption and authoritarian drift.

Her former position supplied the interview’s authority, even when the events described occurred after she had left the administration or depended on unidentified third parties.

Some claims were contradicted by readily available evidence. Mendel portrayed Zelenskyy as remaining in office because he had cancelled elections for his own benefit.

Ukrainian elections are prohibited while martial law remains in force. Organising a credible national vote during continuing hostilities would also require solutions for soldiers, occupied territories, displaced citizens and millions of Ukrainians abroad.

She suggested that genuine support for Zelenskyy had largely collapsed and was confined to people who benefited from his system.

A survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in spring 2026 found that 58% of respondents trusted the president, compared with 36% who did not.

Trust should not be confused with electoral support, and the same survey showed considerable uncertainty about his future after the war. It nonetheless contradicts the impression that only a small dependent constituency still supports him.

Ukraine indeed has democratic weaknesses. Wartime restrictions have narrowed political competition and access to information. Corruption has damaged public trust.

The concentration of authority around the Presidential Office deserves serious examination. Treating every criticism of Zelenskyy as Russian propaganda would protect bad governance and weaken Ukraine’s democratic culture. 

The relevant distinction lies between evidence-based scrutiny and a narrative that absorbs every problem into a predetermined conclusion: Ukraine is an autocracy, its leadership profits from war, the West prevents peace and continued assistance merely sustains corruption. Her statements are valuable to Russian propaganda even if not being produced by it.

That is precisely why the choice of platform deserves attention.

Carlson gave the claims an American source and an enormous audience. Russian outlets could then cite an apparent Western validation. The JDD returned the argument to France through the testimony of a former Ukrainian official.

At each stage, the message acquired a new identity. A familiar Kremlin contention no longer appeared as a Russian claim.

It became the judgement of an American commentator, then the confession of a Ukrainian insider, then a French controversy over a leader supposedly protected from criticism.

The limit of France’s defences

Now, the content is produced legally by a domestic outlet. Its authors may hold their views sincerely. The narratives involved often combine true facts, contested judgements and misleading causal claims. They sit within political debate rather than outside it.

French law can regulate broadcasters, require honesty and pluralism, sanction specific unlawful conduct and act against covert foreign operations.

It cannot treat every view favourable to Moscow as illegal without damaging the freedoms it is supposed to protect.

The measures against Fedorova move the dispute from editorial responsibility to national security.

The Interior Ministry says that her behaviour systematically reproduces Kremlin propaganda and makes her a relay for campaigns controlled by the Russian authorities. The asset freeze was justified as a means of preventing further acts of interference.

The full evidence supporting those conclusions has not been made public. It may include material beyond her televised appearances and published columns.

Until the substantive legal challenge is heard, the government’s characterisation remains an executive allegation rather than a judicial finding.

The rejection of Fedorova’s emergency application changed none of that. The court decided that she had not demonstrated immediate personal consequences grave enough to justify intervention within 48 hours.

The freedom of expression objection therefore deserves more than dismissal.

Expulsion and an asset freeze are severe administrative measures. The latter makes paid work for a French outlet extremely difficult even if Fedorova remains able to speak from abroad. A democratic government should be required to show more than that a foreign national has expressed views compatible with an adversarial state.

At the same time, the response from her employers avoids a separate responsibility.

Canal+ and Lagardère defended Fedorova as a journalist contributing to pluralism. Yet pluralism does not require an outlet to present state narratives without disclosure, verification or effective contradiction.

Freedom to publish does not remove the duty to explain a contributor’s institutional history or test claims made before a mass audience.

Fedorova’s former position at RT is not an incidental biographical detail.

It is directly relevant when she discusses the war, Russia’s intentions and the alleged dishonesty of European policy. Mendel’s former position is equally relevant in the opposite direction: it adds authority, but only for the period and decisions to which she had genuine access.

The same standard applies to both. Audiences should know what a source can establish, what remains hearsay and what is political interpretation.

Removing Fedorova from French territory may temporarily remove one prominent voice. It will not reverse the recruitment of former RT staff, change an outlet’s editorial incentives or prevent French commentators from making the same arguments.

It may even reinforce the story on which Fedorova’s public role has depended since 2017: that institutions invoke disinformation to silence facts they cannot answer. The stronger the sanction, the easier it becomes to substitute a dispute about censorship for scrutiny of her actual claims.

The next presidential election will provide the real test. Russian influence will not be measured only by hacked documents, fabricated websites or money traced back to Moscow.

It will also be visible in the arguments French outlets choose to normalise, the credentials they use to authenticate them and the scrutiny they apply before placing them before large audiences.

Charlotte Guillou-Clerc,

Journalist (France), for European Pravda