The situation is not improving with Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. According to Reporters Without Borders, press freedom has reached its lowest point in a quarter of a century due to a general degradation globally, from the United States where attacks by Donald Trump are “systematic,” to Saudi Arabia, which executed a journalist in 2025.
For the first time in the history of the annual ranking created in 2002, “more than half of the world’s countries (94) are in a ‘difficult’ or ‘very serious’ situation when they were only a tiny minority (13.7%) in 2002,” writes RSF, which has a five-level scale from “very serious” to “good.”
France ranks 25th, while the United States drops seven places. The percentage of the population living in a country where the press freedom situation is “good” has dropped from 20% to “less than 1%.”
Only seven countries in Northern Europe, with Norway at the top, are in this category. France ranks 25th (“situation rather good”). “In twenty-five years, the average score of all the countries studied has never been so low,” adds the organization.
The United States, in a “problematic situation,” loses seven places and ranks 64th, between Botswana and Panama. Apart from attacks by the Republican president against the press, which RSF describes as “systematic,” this has also led to the detention and expulsion of Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara, who was exposing migrant arrests in the United States, and the drastic reduction in funding for U.S. international broadcasting.
In addition to assassinations and imprisonments, political and economic pressures are also increasing. “Attacks on journalists are changing. There are still assassinated journalists, imprisoned journalists, but the pressures are also economic, political, legal,” says Anne Bocandé, RSF’s editorial director.
Among the five measurement criteria used by RSF, the indicator of the legal framework deteriorated the most in 2025. “National security laws, counterterrorism, or defense secrets are increasingly restricting the field of journalism. Russia is a champion in this regard, but the impact is also felt in democracies,” emphasizes Anne Bocandé.
Another weapon is the “SLAPP lawsuits,” which are legal actions for defamation, economic harassment, or spreading fake news aimed at intimidating journalists.
Despite this, “tools exist,” she notes, mentioning the European Commission’s regulation on media freedom, which came into effect in 2025, and the EU directive against SLAPP lawsuits.
