The French media regulator ARCOM has ordered the country’s private satellite broadcaster Eutelsat to stop offering two Russian channels on its platform.
The affected channels, STS and 5 TV (also known as Channel 5), are linked to a commercial enterprise that has faced sanctions by the European Union following Russia’s siege on neighboring Ukraine several years ago.
“These channels are controlled by the Russian company, JSC National Media Group, whose financial resources have been frozen,” a spokesperson for ARCOM said in a statement on Friday. The sanctions mean the channels linked to JSC National Media Group are subject to “a ban on their distribution” by television operators and distributors that conduct business within E.U. member states.
ARCOM said Eutelsat had three days to stop broadcasting the affected channels.
The order is the latest to involve Eutelsat and Russian channels. In 2022, Eutelsat said it would stop broadcasting a number of Russian networks — including RT (formerly Russia Today), Sputnik, Rossia 1 and NTV — following E.U.-imposed sanctions on Russian state-funded and commercial TV channels. The E.U. had earlier urged its member states to cancel the broadcast licenses of Russian broadcasters over the country’s war in Ukraine.
