Novaya Gazeta co-founder Dmitry Muratov meets French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace, Paris, France, 19 April 2024. Photo: Emmanuel Macron
Novaya Gazeta founder and Nobel Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday, the Élysée Palace said in a statement.
Muratov and Macron discussed humanitarian issues including political prisoners and refugee rights during the meeting, which lasted over an hour according to Novaya Gazeta, as well as the influence of propaganda and the “consequences of the destruction of independent media in Russia”.
The pair also spoke about the prospect of an “Olympic truce” between Russia and Ukraine during this summer’s Olympics in Paris, Novaya Gazeta said.
In its statement, the Élysée said Macron had paid tribute to Muratov’s “commitment to freedom of expression”.
Macron later tweeted a photograph of himself and Muratov, saying that France would “always stand alongside the defenders of freedom, for free, plural and independent information”.
Muratov co-founded Novaya Gazeta in 1993 alongside colleagues from newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, where he had previously worked. Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev donated parts of his own Nobel Prize money to fund Novaya Gazeta’s establishment. Muratov served as the paper’s editor-in-chief from 1995 to 2017 and again from 2019 to 2023.
In 2021, Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize together with Filipino journalist Maria Ressa for his “efforts to safeguard freedom of expression”, and subsequently auctioned off his medal for €98.4 million in support of Ukrainian refugees.
In September, he stepped down from his role as the paper’s long-standing editor-in-chief after being designated a “foreign agent” by Russia’s Justice Ministry.
