Night has fallen, boulevard des Italiens, in the very chic 2nd arrondissement of Paris. For the first anniversary of RT France, politicians, journalists and influential personalities crowd under the glass roof of the Centorial, the mythical headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais, which has become a business center. Not far from the entrance, Xenia Fedorova, mistress of ceremonies and director of the chain, greets her guests in English, with a smile on her face. A little further, the economist Jacques Sapir, editorial writer for RT France, is there too, accompanied by his wife. We also meet political figures, such as François Asselineau, president of the UPR, the brand new boss of the Patriots, Florian Philippot, or Georges Kuzmanovic, president of the sovereign Republic and ex-lieutenant of Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
“All of Paris was in its evenings, assures Alain Juillet, ex-director of intelligence at the DGSE and former host of the show Source on RT France. I met politicians there, people from the Medef, everyone!” The assertion makes another choke. “Sovereignists, above all, corrects a guest, invited to the Centorial because of his interventions the year spent on the channel. The man lets out a nervous laugh: “We were associated with the macronists, so over there, we didn’t just have friends, we were physically turned away”. During its four years of existence, the channel financed by the Kremlin will not have only produced programs. She will also have participated in the creation of a community, united around similar values, rather well disposed towards Russia… and eager for light.
Former news channel journalists
To constitute this flagship of the Russian information in France, which should be liquidated soon, decision of the European Union obliges, Moscow did not skimp on the means. A budget of twenty million euros to recruit a sharp team of nearly 150 people. The use of a headhunter, also, for the most exposed positions, via the company Talent Sphere, a “human resources consulting firm”, which works in particular for M6, Arte, or France Télévisions. Also, the first names to flow into the management are not obscure Moscow executives, but figures known for their past in Parisian newsrooms. Among them, Jean-Maurice Potier, ex-journalist of LCI, catapulted “deputy director of information”. Or Nadia de Mourzitch, former deputy director of programs at TF1 from 2001 to 2010, who became director of programs at RT France.
Other names, from M6 or the late I-Télé, join them. “I was preparing my program with a former journalist from BFM”, relates Jacques Sapir. In order to arouse vocations, RT is generous in a disaster environment. “They offered permanent contracts and higher salaries than average. A lot of freelancers and school leavers joined them,” recalls a former journalist, who recently left the company.
gondola head
Heavily inspired by CNN, the 24-hour television channel – American! – broadcast internationally, RT France obtains channel 362 from Freebox, number 176 from Canal +… and is looking for gondola heads. According to Jacques-Marie Bourget, a member of her ethics committee, Xenia Fedorova thinks for a while of Frédéric Mitterrand, before he dissuades her. “I told him ‘oh no not him!’, and I strongly suggested Frédéric Taddeï”, he assures, not a little proud. After a first refusal, the host finally accepts the daily Forbidden to forbid, when he left France Télévisions, and gave RT France its only real “star”. Hitherto reluctant guests come “for Taddeï”. They sometimes agree to appear in other shows, to the delight of the programmers. “A programmer, now in another medium, once said to me, ‘It’s incredible, now everyone answers me!’, says a former editorial manager. Normal: at RT, 80% of the address book was useless”.
At its inception, RT France seemed to have the sole objective of bringing the famous “Russian point of view” to life in the French-speaking world. But things change with the yellow vests. Very quickly, the journalists of the chain are of each demonstration, recognized by the participants. “It’s simple: every time I went there, I saw them too”, describes Didier Maïsto, former boss of Sud Radio and author of the documentary Forgotten France for RT France. “It’s not rocket science: when you are a small media, the best way to stand out is to go on subjects where others do not go. We perceived a lack of coverage of the subject, we went there” , tells us an editor at the time. The formula works: the group is gaining popularity on social networks, especially with yellow vests. In the series of live Facebook that he did regularly at the time of the demonstrations, made inaccessible since, Eric Drouet, figure of the movement, explained that only three media found favor in his eyes: the journalist Vincent Lapierre, Brut, and… RT France.
The failure of Western democracies
The cover of the yellow vests allows him to develop a fad already exploited in the other subsidiaries of Russia Today abroad: the bankruptcy of Western democracies. “To show the flaws of Westerners, Russia Today has a local strategy, which it declines according to the country, deciphers Fabrice Epelboin, also a speaker on the channel. In France, they exploited the idea that there is a problem with freedom of expression. They covered the subjects that others did not, and gave a voice to those who did not have it.”
Convinced of having found its audience, RT France therefore seeks to be omnipresent in the demonstrations. “It was the major difference with the other channels: a tendency to overmediatize all social conflicts, without their coverage in itself being scandalous”, abounds another former member of the group, who left in early 2020. Journalist Nicolas Winckler , who left RT France after a year, is much more severe. True, the subjects are not dictated from Moscow. But, on themes “like violence in the suburbs, I had the feeling that they were very happy to see the urban disorder linked to the problems of society”, he said in October in the webzine La Fabrique de l’info. A regular speaker also perceived a shift towards ever more criticism of power: “It’s simple: they took the public yellow vests, and then they covered all the anti-Macron demonstrations. From 2020, I I’ve only been invited for shows anti-pass, anti-vaccine, anti, anti, etc”. To respect the pluralism required by the CSA, RT is obliged to invite executives from LREM, but “second, third, even eighth knives”, as employees of the chain say, since the big elected officials refuse to move.
Launch pad for toutologists
With this editorial line, the channel serves as a launching pad for new toutologists with anti-s-system ideas. “For me, RT was the channel of dissidence in the West”, summarizes Georges Kuzmanovic. Ambitious young wolves rush to take their classes, hoping to obtain a passport to more watched media. The lawyer Pierre Gentillet or the former columnist of Current Values Kevin Bossuet, who notably took the light thanks to RT, for example now officiate on CNews. At least two programmers also made the transfer between the two media.
Sovereignty of both shores
Appearing several times on RT France as a speaker, blogger Olivier Berruyer is also close to the channel’s networks. “Journalists from RT France were able to write voluntarily for his blog, Les Crises, and there was a tacit agreement that he could use some of our archives for free”, believes a former member of the group. Both Berruyer and Sky, the presenter of YouTube channel Thinkerview, were spotted together among dinner guests at the Russian Embassy in 2019, along with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
With the disappearance of the channel, blocked in the European Union after the Russian invasion on Ukrainian soil, the heralds of French “alternative thought”, in all its nuances, thus lose one of their favorite platforms. But several media have already taken up the recipe, with success: CNews, but also Popular Frontthe review of Michel Onfray.
The staff of RT France seeks for its part to relocate: according to information from the weekly Young Africaseveral members of the editorial management team would consider broadcasting from West Africa. Four days after the start of the Russian invasion, Xenia Fedorova would have contacted the boss of a pure player, Maliactu to think about the follow-up to the events. A site which is, moreover, the main relay of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in the country. On the way to a new area of influence?