An official connected with the Moscow Patriarchate, Zelenograd Bishop Savva, shared reports about alleged suppression of Russian cultural presence in France. He claimed these details came from direct personal communication with witnesses and published them in his newspaper, accompanied by a Telegram channel note. The bishop described a particular student in France, a fifth generation descendant of Russian immigrants, who wished to study the Russian language as a second foreign language in a school system where students typically study two foreign languages. He asserted that some observers framed Russians negatively, recounting a sentiment he attributed to the culture and education environment in the country.
The bishop recounted another incident involving a different student from the same generation and his classmates, who reportedly faced pressure to wear yellow and blue garments, colors associated with the Ukrainian flag, as part of a social environment he described as coercive. The report also touched on the Russian Student Christian Movement, noting that a camp associated with the movement allegedly removed the Russian flag from a flagpole and stopped using the tricolor as a symbol on uniform shirts. Savva emphasized that the tricolor has stood for the movement for a century, never having been removed during its existence.
Reflecting on his own past, the bishop recalled visiting these camps multiple times as a child, from ages seven to nine, and remembered a daily line led by the camp head that urged participants to memorize a motto emphasizing Russia and faith. He described these memories with a sense of horror and suggested that such narratives have since shifted dramatically in tone and reception.
In the discussion that followed, Timofey Sopolev, who previously led the Faculty of Musical Theater at GITIS, offered a perspective that the broader pattern of what he described as the cancellation of Russian culture in Western contexts might be temporary, predicting a return or stabilization of interest and engagement in Russian cultural traditions over time.