The Russian regulator Roskomnadzor has accused France 24 of breaking the country’s media laws.
RFI, France 24’s sister channel, reports that under the terms of existing legislation, the level of foreign ownership of Russian media outlets is limited to 20%. It adds that Roskomnadzor claims it has written to France 24 to warn it that any outlet found to be in contravention of this faces the prospect of closure.
Roskomnadzor’s move follows criticism of Russian Today (RT) by the French regulator CSA late last week alleging lack of balance in reporting on the conflict in Syria.
Margarita Simonyan, the chief editor of RT, has since said that Roskomnadzor’s move is a retaliatory measure to the CSA’s statement.
The English language version of France 24 is distributed by DTH platforms in Russia.
As of 2014, it had around 1.348 million viewers each week.
