Thread by @jeangene_vilmer

🚨 [THREAD] Total and definitive victory against the Kremlin media. In a procedure that lasted almost 6 years, all the way to the French Court of Cassation, RT France sued me in a typical case of lawfare (using law as a weapon) against France. And Moscow lost.

RT France was initially reacting to the publication on 4/9/2018 of the CAPS (@francediplo_EN)-@IRSEM1 report, which quoted RT several times but contained only 1 ref to RT France, on the case that had led to it being put on notice by the Regulatory Authority: diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/inform…

In the days that followed, we were subjected to intense and visibly coordinated attacks by the Russian authorities in Moscow and their media, including RT and Sputnik. Critics distorted our words, attacked CAPS and IRSEM, and sought to discredit the authors.

Reacting to the rolling fire of Russian propaganda we had been the target of for the past 5 days, I posted a thread showing that the methods used to attack our report were in fact illustrative of the manipulations it denounced.

https://twitter.com/jeangene_vilmer/status/1039100666562654209

On 3/12/2018, RT France filed not one but two defamation suits: one against the 4 authors of the report (my fellow diplomats and I) + the 2 MFA and MoD spokespersons; the other against me alone for 5 of the tweets in the aforementioned thread.

This trial was not what it seemed: it was not a private company suing an individual, but a state using the weapon of law to attack another. An attack by a foreign state against agents of the French state for political reasons.

These 2 attempts failed. The 1st complaint was dismissed, confirmed by the Court of Appeal. RT appealed to the Court of Cassation, then withdrew. On the 2nd, the court dismissed RT France in 2022. At the time, I published this press release: irsem.fr/en/case-rt-fra…

Since then, RT France has also lost before the Court of Appeal in January 2024; it appealed to the Court of Cassation but, having failed to file its brief in time, its appeal was withdrawn. The Court of Cassation's order of April 30, 2024 closes the proceedings.

RT France used to take legal action against its critics and had already lost against @Charlie_Hebdo_, @DominiqueReynie, @NTenzer and @BGriveaux. It no longer exists as a French company, but remains represented by a judicial representative.

Authoritarian states (and not just Russia) will continue to conduct these intimidation lawsuits (SLAPP), because those who undertake them have the means to do so, and are indifferent to the outcome of the trial, and therefore to defeat. Their aim is to encourage self-censorship.

These authoritarian states, through seemingly private companies, think they can control public opinion and expression abroad as they do at home. And to do so, they abuse the rights and remedies they enjoy in our democracies.

Their aim is for these procedures to last as long as possible, to impose a financial cost and have a deterrent effect. This works relatively well: avoiding the risk (of prosecution) leads many people to adapt their discourse.

As a result, these seemingly private companies behind which states hide help to reduce criticism and shape public discourse about themselves and, by extension, about these states. This is one of the manifestations of lawfare.

Faced with this threat, what can we do? 1/ Publicly denounce these maneuvers. Let's pay tribute to
@NTenzer who, less than two weeks before his trial against RT France, had the courage to publish an article in @lemondefr denouncing this practice. lemonde.fr/idees/article/…

2/ Turn this weapon against them: these trials provide an opportunity for public proof, putting the court in a position to objectify elements that the plaintiff could discredit as being no more than individual opinions.

In this case, the trial has shown 2 things. a/ We have produced proof that RT France is not only financed by the Russian state, as it admits, but that its parent company and sole shareholder is officially a Russian "foreign policy tool".

And that RT's audience rating is even cited in an official Russian document as an "indicator of achievement" of this propaganda objective. The court concludes that this does not "guarantee that the information provided by RT is free from political influence".

b/ RT and RT France often repeat that their accusers are incapable of providing a single example. I therefore provided the court with 70 examples of inventing facts, denying facts, falsifying documents, translations, interviews or reported statements.

The court acknowledges that I "document several situations where RT and sometimes RT France may have reported information that may have been distorted, truncated or misleadingly presented". And in its judgment it develops several examples.

For all these reasons, this trial has been useful. I would like to thank the @Armees_Gouv ministry, which granted me functional protection, and my counsel, Jean Boudot and @mboissavy, who supported me with serenity and professionalism. boudot-avocats.fr/fr/actualites-…

To find out more about RT, I refer you to the recent 2nd edition of this excellent book by my friend and former colleague @maximeaudinet 👇 (in French)