France, Nov. 1 -- Rosenberg is well known in Russia. The fame he has gained asking Russia's political leaders, including President Vladimir Putin, direct and unflinching questions during televised press conferences means he is often approached in the street - encounters he says are overwhelmingly positive.

"Very often, people come up to shake my hand or ask for a selfie... it says a lot about what's happening in the country," he said. "In my view, it shows that the massive wave of anti-Western propaganda disseminated by state media hasn't reached the entire population."

On a recent visit to France to attend the Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award for War Correspondents - which held a screening of the BBC documentary Our Man in Moscow, follow...