Four years into Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, one of the clearest contradictions in Europe’s sanctions policy can be found not on a battlefield or in a bank account, but at the French border.
France issued 172,927 visas to Russian nationals in 2025, a 22.3% increase from the previous year, according to France’s Interior Ministry. Russians were the fastest-growing major nationality in France’s visa statistics and accounted for about 6% of all short-stay visas issued by the country.
Across the Schengen area, Russian citizens obtained more than 620,000 visas last year, including more than 477,000 for tourism. Russia was the fourth-largest source of short-stay visa applications, with about 679,000 applications in 2025.
The figures have reopened an argument that Europe has never fully resolved: whether pressure on the Kremlin should be concentrated on the Russian state, military and political elite, or extended to the wider population through restrictions on travel.
For France, the answer remains closer to the first approach. But the distinction is becoming harder to sustain as several countries on Russia’s eastern flank push for a tougher common policy.
France has not opened a loophole in the sanctions regime
The increase in visas does not mean that France has abandoned sanctions against Russia.
The European Union suspended its visa-facilitation agreement with Moscow in 2022, making applications more expensive and subject to greater scrutiny. The EU also instructed member states to apply a strict approach to Russian applicants, including assessing whether an applicant presents a security risk and whether there is a credible intention to leave the EU after a short stay.
Since November 2025, the EU has also tightened the rules for multiple-entry visas issued to Russian nationals applying in Russia.
The European Commission said the changes were designed to create a more uniform approach to Russian applicants while retaining scope for exceptions for dissidents, independent journalists, human-rights defenders and other vulnerable groups.
What has not happened is a general ban on Russian citizens entering the European Union.
That distinction is central to France’s position. A Russian passport is not, by itself, grounds for refusing entry. Applications are assessed individually, with security, travel purpose, financial circumstances and other conditions taken into account.
The French government has therefore been able to maintain sanctions against Moscow while arguing that collective punishment of Russian citizens would be both legally questionable and strategically counterproductive.
The Schengen system makes the dispute bigger than France
The difficulty for France is that a visa issued in Paris does not simply concern France.
Once a Russian traveller has a valid Schengen visa, the document can generally permit travel across the 29-country Schengen area, subject to the applicable entry conditions.
That has made France, Italy and Spain particularly important to countries that want tighter restrictions. The three countries accounted for a large share of Russian visa activity in 2025, while countries closer to Russia have taken a substantially more restrictive political line.
In June, 11 European countries — Sweden, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Poland, together with Iceland and Norway — called for tougher restrictions on Russian tourists. They argued that luxury travel by Russians while the war continues weakens the political effect of European sanctions and creates security concerns.
The disagreement is therefore less about whether Russia should be sanctioned than about what sanctions are supposed to achieve.
For countries bordering Russia, limiting movement is partly a security measure. For France, the emphasis has remained on targeting individuals and entities linked directly to the Russian war effort rather than treating nationality itself as a security category.
Security concerns are changing the argument
The debate has nevertheless moved beyond symbolism.
European governments have become increasingly concerned about Russian espionage, sabotage and other forms of hostile activity inside Europe. A visa does not provide immunity from security checks, but the ability to move through Schengen countries can make it harder for individual states to manage risks once a traveller has entered the common travel area.
The EU’s response has consequently become more targeted.
In July, the bloc agreed the basis for a comprehensive visa ban covering people who have actively fought in the Russian armed forces or affiliated forces involved in the war against Ukraine. The Council said the measure would still require a further decision to bring the ban into force.
France has supported that principle.
The French foreign ministry said in July that Paris backed a measure to prevent visas being granted to individuals who had actively fought in the Russian armed forces in the war against Ukraine, while making clear that another legal act would be required for implementation.
That approach is revealing. Rather than moving from individual assessment to a blanket ban on Russians, France has accepted a more narrowly defined security filter.
The dividing line is increasingly becoming not simply Russian nationality, but a person’s relationship with the Russian military and state.
The French Riviera complicates the politics
Economics adds another layer.
Before the pandemic and the war, Russian visitors were disproportionately important to parts of France’s luxury tourism economy. In 2019, Russian and former Soviet tourists accounted for about 6% of tourist stays on the Côte d’Azur, with their spending concentrated in destinations between Cannes and Monaco.
Russian tourism generated an estimated €695 million in France that year, according to figures cited by the French Central Bank.
The region has also historically attracted wealthy Russian clients to hotels, property, private aviation and yachting. In the high-end 50- to 60-metre-plus yacht segment, Russian clients were estimated to account for as much as a quarter of the market before the war.
That economic relationship has not disappeared simply because direct flights between Russia and France were disrupted.
Russian travellers can reach France through third countries such as Turkey or the United Arab Emirates, while wealthy clients have greater ability to absorb the additional cost and complexity of indirect travel.
France’s current visa figures show that demand has recovered strongly even without the travel environment that existed before February 2022.
Courchevel offered a glimpse of the political problem
The controversy surrounding a Russian luxury event in Courchevel in January illustrated why the issue has become politically uncomfortable.
Russian retailer Rendez-Vous, which has a long-established presence in the French ski resort, organised a lavish promotional event to mark its 25th anniversary. Patricia Kaas performed at a private concert on Jan. 15, 2026, while guests were treated to luxury accommodation and other high-end activities. The event subsequently became known as the “Courchevel Gate” in Russian media and social-media discussions.
The episode was striking not because a Russian citizen could legally visit France — that was already established — but because it placed conspicuous Russian wealth in a French luxury destination against the backdrop of a war in which European governments were spending billions to support Ukraine.
The same tension appears in less visible ways across the French tourism economy.
For a hotel, restaurant, yacht broker or ski resort, a Russian visitor is a customer. For a European security service, the same traveller may require a different level of scrutiny depending on his or her background.
That is the unresolved problem at the centre of the visa debate.
Europe is tightening the rules without closing the door
The EU’s policy is consequently moving toward a more complicated middle ground.
Economic sanctions remain focused on sectors, companies, financial institutions and individuals connected to Russia’s war effort. In June, the EU extended its broader economic sanctions against Russia until July 2027.
At the same time, visa policy is becoming more restrictive, particularly for applicants considered to present security risks or who have links to Russia’s military apparatus.
But European governments have stopped short of making Russian nationality itself an automatic bar to entry.
That reflects a practical difficulty as much as a legal one. A blanket travel ban would affect dissidents, independent journalists, relatives of Europeans, business travellers and Russians who oppose the Kremlin alongside those who support it.
It would also represent a major departure from the EU’s long-standing model of assessing visa applicants individually.
France’s position is therefore not simply a question of being softer on Russia than its eastern European neighbours. It reflects a different theory of sanctions: punish the state and people directly contributing to the war, while preserving a channel to Russian society.
The political cost is that the distinction can look increasingly artificial when wealthy Russians continue to spend money in Europe’s most exclusive destinations while European governments finance Ukraine’s war effort.
The strategic question for Europe is no longer whether Russians should be allowed into Europe at all. It is where the line should be drawn between isolating Vladimir Putin’s government and isolating the people governed by it.
Four years into the war, that line remains unsettled.
