Paris ‘regrets’ Egypt decision to expel French journalist

Paris has slammed a decision by the Egyptian authorities for deporting a French journalist without any reason as Cairo faces harsh criticism both at home and abroad for cracking down on dissent and media.

“France deeply regrets this decision by the Egyptian authorities,” the European country’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Reporter Remy Pigaglio, who is working for the French Catholic daily La Croix and France’s RTL radio, expelled from Egypt on Tuesday after spending a night of detention at the airport.

The newspaper’s publication director, Guillaume Goubert, said Pigaglio “was returning from holidays in France on Monday when he was detained by airport security.”

He highlighted that the airport police had seized Pigaglio’s passport and mobile phone, adding that he had not been able to contact the French embassy for hours.

“After a night in the cells, he was expelled for no reason, although all his papers were in order,” Goubert said, adding, “It appears that Egypt’s intelligence service was behind the decision.”

Pigaglio said in a statement published in La Croix that he had not been interrogated, adding he still did not know the reason behind his expulsion.

The ministry noted that France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault discussed the situation of Pigaglio with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, on Tuesday.

‘Cairo intimidating foreign journalists’

Meanwhile, the media rights group, Reporters Without Borders, also decried the decision, saying it was “very disturbed” by the expulsion.

“Given the circumstances, everything suggests that this was designed to intimidate all the foreign correspondents based in Cairo,” said a spokeswoman for the France-based NGO, which also urged Cairo to explain the action.

Paris has been among 12 European states, which have been slammed in a new report by Amnesty International for their arms sales to the repressive government in Cairo amid its heavy-handed crackdown on opposition.

“EU states transferring arms and policing equipment to Egyptian forces carrying out enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary arrests on a mass scale are acting recklessly and are risking complicity in these serious violations,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, the interim deputy Middle East and North Africa Program director at Amnesty.

The Egyptian government has been cracking down on opposition since former President Mohamed Morsi was ousted in a military coup led by ex-military chief and current President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in July 2013.

Sisi has been accused of leading the suppression of Morsi’s supporters; hundreds of them have been killed in clashes with Egyptian security forces over the past couple of years.

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