Russia kicks out Le Monde's Moscow correspondent

Russia said on Thursday that it had withdrawn accreditation from Le Monde's Moscow correspondent due to Paris's refusal to issue a visa to a Russian reporter, leaving the paper without a correspondent in Moscow for the first time since the 1950s.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow had taken retaliatory measures after repeated warnings to Paris over its refusal to give a visa to the Russian journalist.

Le Monde criticised what it said was the "covert expulsion of our journalist".

"For the first time since 1957, Le Monde is prevented from having a correspondent based in Moscow," Jérôme Fenoglio, the director of Le Monde, said in an article in the paper.

He said that reliable reporting from Russia was more important than ever and that France believed that Russian journalists who were refused visas by Paris were in fact working for Russian intelligence.