En Marche official refuses to say when RT will be accredited by Macron’s team (VIDEO)
An RT crew caught up with En Marche’s spokeswoman to ask when RT will get accreditation by the team of French presidential hopeful Emmanuel Macron during a rally in his hometown. The official refused to comment, walking away.
“Will you finally accept the accreditation request by RT?,” an RT correspondent asked Laurence Haim, spokeswoman for Macron and his En Marche party, during a rally in his hometown of Amiens in northern France.
Haim refused to comment and avoided the question, and finally just walked away.
On Sunday, the day of the first round of the election, RT was denied access into Macron’s headquarters.
RT contacted Macron’s press team earlier in April and was promised accreditation for the evening of the first round of the French presidential election. However, despite requests, accreditation was never issued, with the Macron team merely saying, “They are still being processed.”
The Russian Foreign Ministry says the failure of the Macron campaign to allow the Russian media do its job is “a deliberate and outright discrimination of the Russian media by a presidential candidate of a country that has been historically championing the freedom of speech.”
“We call on specialized international structures and the bodies of the French Republic relevant to the issue to take notice of the violation of media rights during the presidential election and to take action to prevent similar infringements during the second round in May,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday during a media briefing.
Members of Macron’s campaign have repeatedly accused RT and Russian news agency Sputnik of spreading “fake news” on behalf of the Kremlin.
READ MORE: RT ‘flattered’ to be centerpiece of Macron’s French presidential campaign
In April, AP reported that Japan-based anti-virus research group Trend Micro said the campaign of Macron’s En Marche! was “targeted by Russia-linked hackers.” Moscow, however, dismissed the allegations, saying that they are merely “fake news.”
In March, during an interview with Sky, Macron aide Mounir Mahjoubi accused RT and Sputnik of spreading “false information” in the run-up to the French presidential election, but without any proof.
“We are accusing Russia Today [RT] and Sputnik News [of being] the first source of false information shared about our candidate and all the other symbiotic ways of working with all these fascist organizations or extreme right news organizations,” Mahjoubi declared.
In February, the secretary-general of Macron’s campaign, Richard Ferrand, accused the two Russian media outlets of “spreading [and] developing fake news” to allegedly “influence democratic life” in France.
RT said it “adamantly” denied these unfounded allegations. “It seems that it has become acceptable to level such serious charges at RT without presenting any evidence to substantiate them, as well as to apply this ‘fake news’ label to any reporting that one might simply find unfavorable,” RT’s Press Office said in response to Ferrand’s remarks.
READ MORE: RT debunks charges of ‘fake news’ on French election
Macron won the first round of the presidential race on Sunday by securing 24.01 percent of the votes to Le Pen's 21.3 percent. Macron, who is seen to represent big business, attracts the well-educated and well-employed electorate.
