Russian Journalist Working for "Belsat" Project Faces Expulsion from France
The French Ministry of Interior has refused to issue a residence permit to Russian journalist Iryna Ananina, who works for the Belsat TV channel's "Vot Tak" project, and demanded that she leave the country. As reported by Radio Svaboda, the reasons for the refusal were not disclosed. Ananina has lived in France for five years, and her husband is a French citizen.
Iryna Ananina is from Saint Petersburg; previously, she worked for the newspaper "Delovoy Peterburg" and the Saint Petersburg editorial office of "Echo of Moscow" radio. In the 2020s, she began collaborating with the media project "Vot Tak," and in 2021 she moved to France, where a year later she married Frenchman Bertrand Ballet, whom she had known for several years prior.
After the wedding, Iryna filed an application with the Ministry of Interior for a residence permit on the grounds of family reunification. The application was reviewed for over 2 years, and in early August, she received a refusal and a notice of expulsion from France.
Ananina attempted to document her right to live in France with her husband. The mayor of the city where they married sent confirmation to the Montpellier prefecture that he had personally registered their marriage and that it was not fictitious.
According to Ananina, prefecture employees hinted to her in a private conversation about possible difficulties in obtaining the permit due to her Russian citizenship. The Russian citizen's lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, stated that the expulsion decision is illegal and violates the rights of both spouses. He plans to appeal the corresponding decision.
The media project "Vot Tak" was created in 2017 as part of the Belarusian independent company "Belsat." Its goal is to disseminate objective information about social and political life in Belarus and the world, as well as to counter Russian and Belarusian propaganda. After 2020, due to increased repression against independent media, Belsat's Minsk editorial office moved to Poland and is now part of the international broadcasting of the national Polish company TVP. In May 2022, this channel was blocked in Russia at the request of the Russian Prosecutor General's Office, and in January 2024, the Russian Ministry of Justice recognized the "Vot Tak" project as a "foreign agent."
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