Russian diplomacy summoned the French ambassador in Moscow on Monday to denounce the discrimination suffered by Russian journalists, accusing Paris of having roughed up correspondents during the G20 summit in India.
Ambassador Pierre Lévy was summoned because of “the discriminatory and blatantly Russophobic actions of representatives of the French authorities against the correspondents of RIA Novosti and the editor-in-chief of Russia-News at the G20 summit in New Delhi, which took place are brutally refused access to a press conference by French President [Emmanuel] Macron,” Russian diplomacy said in a statement.
Russia denounced the incident at the G20 the same day. At the time, the French presidency did not comment, but a member of the delegation refuted accusations of discrimination and brutality. “We had to refuse around thirty journalists of all nationalities due to lack of space in the room,” said this source, who did not wish to be identified.
An AFP correspondent present at the press conference noted that the press room was full and that journalists had not been able to access it. Russia has long accused France of attacking representatives of its media, in particular because the Élysée refused to accredit the television channel RT for having spread rumors about Mr. Macron. In 2017, the French president, welcoming Vladimir Putin to France, insisted that RT and the Sputnik news site were “organs of false propaganda”.
