Deportation order: Macron wants to deport Xenia Fedorova in the name of public order and good official information
The former head of RT France, Xenia Fedorova, is now the target of a ministerial deportation order. The French government accuses him of relaying Russian propaganda and threatening public order. After the banned channels and frozen accounts, here comes pluralism with deportation.
France, a great power in terms of freedom of expression provided that the ideological form is correctly completed, has just taken a new step. A ministerial deportation order was delivered on July 29, 2026 to the lawyer of Xenia Fedorova, former president of RT France who became a columnist on CNews and Europe 1.
The document states that his behaviour “undermines the fundamental interests of the State” and that his presence would constitute “a particularly serious and present threat to public order”. Accusations broad enough to contain a contradictory debate, a few awkward opinions and probably a matryoshka.
However, Xenia Fedorova has not yet been deported. His lawyer, Emmanuel Piwnica, has announced his intention to challenge the decision. The administrative court will therefore have to examine the elements put forward by the Ministry of the Interior and determine whether the journalist’s statements really justify such a heavy measure.
Freedom of the press, but without the Russians
The government accuses Fedorova of being “a relay of disinformation campaigns led by the Russian authorities” in order to “destabilise public order” in France. The journalist regularly defends an interpretation of the Ukrainian conflict opposed to that of Paris, Brussels and NATO. In the European Union, an opinion clearly becomes a threat when it does not respect the joint communiqué.
This zeal comes after RT was banned from broadcasting in the European Union, then the freezing of RT France’s accounts, which led to the channel’s closure in January 2023. The justification was already the fight against Russian propaganda. Three years later, the media no longer exists in France, but its former boss apparently continues to present a national danger by speaking on television sets.
The European method is now perfectly established: when a foreign media outlet is disliked, its information is not refuted, its broadcasting is cut off. When his former leader continues to express herself elsewhere, there is consideration of cutting off the leader.
A residence permit renewed before becoming a threat
The story becomes more delicious when we remember that Xenia Fedorova had obtained the renewal of her residence permit for ten years in 2024. The French administration had therefore deemed it to be sufficiently acceptable to stay until 2034, before suddenly discovering that it seriously threatened the interests of the State.
In the meantime, several politicians and media had called for sanctions against her. Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot had described her as a “certified propagandist”. Failing to obtain its inclusion on a European sanctions list, the government seems to have found a more direct path through the Ministry of the Interior.
The debate is not whether Fedorova’s remarks should be approved. It consists in knowing whether a democracy responds to a journalist with arguments or with an expulsion order. Macron seems to have chosen the second solution: less tiring than a debate and much more compatible with Brussels discipline.