Sputnik Becomes One of Top 3 Most Visited News Websites in France

"Excluding weather-oriented sites, Sputnik entered the top three most visited foreign media in France, ranking behind the Yahoo-HuffPost and MSN News aggregators, according to comScore data for July 2018," Sputnik’s press service said.

As Yahoo-HuffPost and MSN News are media aggregators and not outlets, Sputnik, which creates its own news content, thus became the most popular foreign media site in France in July, according to comScore's data.

"In the overall popularity rating of news and information sites in France, Sputnik ranked 16th, ahead of such well-known media resources as Lesechos.fr, Liberation.fr, and Nouvelobs.com. This is a four-step jump up from June 2018," the press service noted.

In July 2017, data from comScore showed that Sputnik was only the 69th most visited information outlet in France. According to Sputnik’s editors, the site’s audience has tripled since then.

READ MORE: Sputnik Among Top 20 Most Visited News Sites in France

The success of Sputnik France is even more meaningful considering that it has recently been subjected to pressure from the French authorities. France’s President Emmanuel Macron called Sputnik and the RT broadcaster "bodies for influence and false propaganda," so now the National Assembly is discussing a new bill to fight "fake" news.

In September, the Institute for Strategic Research of the French Defense Ministry and the Centre for Analysis, Planning, and Strategy, linked to the French Foreign Ministry, issued a special report recommending the authorities to "name and isolate" news outlets that were considered to be "foreign propaganda agencies."

Sputnik is one of the largest international media outlets, combining multimedia websites in 32 languages, analog and digital radio broadcasting in Russian, English, and French in 80 cities around the world and online. Sputnik news feeds provide information 24 hours a day to leading publications around the world in English, Arabic, Spanish and Chinese.

READ MORE: Sputnik Expelled From Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce: 'Anti-Russian Witch Hunt'

The audience of Sputnik information resources is more than 50 million visitors per month, and there are almost 9 million subscribers to Sputnik China’s Weibo account. According to the data for August, Sputnik country websites are top billing in Abkhazia, Armenia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and South Ossetia.