JAKARTA - The Kremlin said France's refusal to grant visas to two Russian media journalists Izvestia was discrimination.
Reported by Reuters on Friday, February 7, state news agency RIA said the couple was denied their visas to visit France to cover the 80th anniversary of the end of this year's Second World War.
Earlier, age on Thursday said it refused to extend the accreditation of Le Monde's correspondent in Moscow, Benjamin Quernelle, after France refused to grant visas to journalists from another Russian newspaper, Komsomolskaya Pravda.
France also condemned Russia's decision to revoke the accreditation of journalist Le Monde.
Le Monde, one of France's most influential newspapers, criticized what he called "the expulsion of our journalist secrets".
For the first time since 1957, Le Monde has been banned from having Moscow-based correspondents, wrote Jér Marijume Fenoglio, his director, in an article in the newspaper.
The French Foreign Ministry asked Russia to reverse its decision.
Le Monde said reliable reporting from Russia became more important than ever and France believed that Paris' visa-rejected Russia actually worked for Russian intelligence.
Diplomats and journalists say Russia is now becoming an environment that is more difficult for them to work with than in previous times, at least since the Nikita Khrushchev era, which replaced Josef Stalin in 1953 and ruled the Soviet Union until 1964.
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