French President Emmanuel Macron throughout a information convention on August 29, 2024. | Picture credit score: AP
French President Emmanuel Macron has defended his resolution to grant fast-track particular citizenship to the chief govt of messaging app Telegram, Pavel Durov, who’s now underneath preliminary fees in France for alleged prison exercise on his common platform.
Mr Macron additionally mentioned on Thursday (29 August 2024) that he didn’t know Durov was coming to France earlier than his shock arrest on the weekend and that he had no plans to satisfy him.
Free speech advocates, far-right figures and authoritarian governments all over the world have come to Durov’s defence and criticised French authorities over the case. Durov was launched on €5m bail however was banned from leaving France and ordered to report back to a police station twice every week pending additional investigation.
French prosecutors accuse Durov of complicity in enabling drug trafficking and the sharing of sexual photographs of kids on Telegram, and of refusing to cooperate with authorities investigating criminal activity on the app.
Durov’s lawyer, David-Olivier Kaminski, informed French media: “It’s completely absurd to assume that the individual accountable for a social community could possibly be concerned in prison acts that don’t concern him, straight or not directly.” The case has drawn consideration to the challenges of policing criminal activity on-line, and to the weird biography of Russian-born Durov and his a number of passports.
At a press convention throughout a go to to Serbia, Macron mentioned France helps freedom of expression and the liberty of entrepreneurs. He mentioned approving Durov’s request to acquire French nationality (like sports activities stars, artists and others who contribute to France’s wealth and study French) was “good for our nation.” He additionally talked about Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, who, like Durov, obtained French citizenship not by means of the standard bureaucratic and troublesome course of, however by means of a particular course of for “meritorious foreigners.”
French satirical and investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchaine reported that Durov informed police after his arrest on Saturday that he deliberate to satisfy Macron.
Macron denied this: “I had no thought of Durov’s arrival in France,” he mentioned, including: “It’s false that I supplied him any sort of invitation… His arrest was an act unbiased of French justice.”
