Participants of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games walk past the cafeteria of the Olympic Village in Saint-Denis, northern Paris, ahead of the Opening Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games on July 22, 2024. (Photo: Michel Euler/Pool/AFP)
The Kremlin on Monday criticised France for barring some Russian journalists from covering the Paris Olympics after French authorities said they suspected several of them of being undercover spies.
In a newspaper interview over the weekend, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said Paris had rejected a “large number” of applications from Russian citizens for media accreditation to cover the Games.
He told Le Journal du Dimanche that France suspected some of the people were actually working for Moscow’s secret services and were trying to gain access to the Games to “gather intelligence” or possibly “gain access to computer networks to carry out a cyber attack.”
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Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti said on Monday that five of its text correspondents had been denied accreditation.
“We consider this decision unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
“This is a violation of media freedom,” he said, calling on human rights groups to raise the issue.
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Russia’s human rights commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said that “the threats of espionage and cyber attacks reported by the French authorities are completely absurd and unfounded claims.”
Russia is banned from taking part in the Olympic Games which begin on Friday because of its military attack on Ukraine.
Some Russian athletes, who the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and individual sports federations have determined have no ties to the military and have not expressed support for the invasion, are being allowed to compete under a neutral flag.
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