Macron loves Telegram. French judges hate it.

PARIS — Open the Telegram chat of anyone in the French political orbit and you’ll notice lawmakers, cabinet members and presidential advisers online or recently connected.
The encrypted messaging app is avidly used within political and media circles — including by French President Emmanuel Macron himself.
On Monday, while Telegram founder Pavel Durov was in French police custody, the president was shown as having been connected to the messaging platform “recently,” a former MP with the French president’s number showed POLITICO on their phone.
Macron has been a Telegram user since the early days of his first presidential campaign. Nearly a decade later, the app remains widely used by both cabinet members and political officials of all ranks and parties, particularly within pro-Macron circles.
Durov, the Russian-born founder and CEO of Telegram, was unexpectedly arrested upon landing in France Saturday night. The precise reason for his arrest has not yet been communicated, but Durov’s custody has been extended.
The founder’s arrest has been criticized by self-proclaimed free speech advocates, including X and Tesla owner Elon Musk, as well as Russian officials, including Senator Alexei Pushkov. On his own Telegram channel, Pushkov called France a “liberal dictatorship” that “does not tolerate individuals who claim freedom.”
In a post on X on Monday, Macron pushed back against these accusations. Durov’s arrest was “in no way a political decision,” he said. “France is deeply committed to freedom of expression and communication, to innovation, and to the spirit of entrepreneurship. It will remain so.”
Durov’s arrest took place as part of a probe into a series of charges including complicity in the detaining and sharing of child pornography, complicity in drug trafficking as well as organized crime laundering, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The probe was opened “against an unidentified person” and did not specifically target Durov.
According to a French justice official not working on the case but familiar with its background, Telegram had drawn frustration in France due to its reluctance to cooperate with authorities. “They have pissed off people with their refusal to give answers in dirty files,” said the official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.
In a statement following Durov’s arrest, Telegram insisted that it “abides by EU laws” and that its CEO “has nothing to hide and travels frequently in Europe.”
“It is absurd to claim that a platform or its owner is responsible for the abuse of that platform,” the company added.
Authorities have tried to curb Telegram’s use in official circles over confidentiality concerns. In November of last year, then-Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne banned ministers and their teams from using WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, stressing that “these digital tools are not devoid of security flaws and therefore cannot guarantee the security of conversations and information shared via them.”
Top officials within the French National Assembly also — unsuccessfully — urged lawmakers to “limit” their use of social media apps and messaging services, including Telegram. In both instances, MPs and cabinet members were encouraged to use lesser-known French alternatives.
But Macron’s own party, Renaissance, still uses a Telegram channel to send public communications to journalists in a private channel that includes 150 members of the press, as does the French interior ministry. Macron also has a public channel where statements and recent news are shared, followed by upwards of 30,000 subscribers, as does the French presidency.
During the 2017 presidential campaign, French security officials had already warned the Macron camp about their Telegram use. “They told us we were being watched, that we were at risk of hacking and that we had to be careful with Telegram, which is a Russian app,” a Macron adviser was quoted as saying by newspaper Libération.
Eric Bothorel, a Renaissance parliamentarian who focuses on cyber-related issues, acknowledged the “persistent use of Telegram despite more or less legitimate warnings.”
Bothorel described Telegram’s protection levels as “not the best, but not the worst,” while underlining that Olvid, a French encrypted messaging platform which the prime minister had asked cabinet members to use in lieu of Telegram, “offered more guarantees.”
“People don’t want to start from scratch, to lose their conversations,” Bothorel told POLITICO about the continued use of Telegram in political circles, describing it as a “force of habit.”
“I don’t use Telegram, only SMS and email — but I think it’s used a lot [in the National Assembly]. I certainly miss things because I don’t have it,” Christine Pirès Beaune, a Socialist MP and elected member of the French lower house’s administration, told POLITICO, adding that the institution would address the “issue of security.”
The Telegram boss has a long-standing relationship with France.
Durov, born in Saint Petersburg, left Russia in 2014 after refusing to hand over the contact information of pro-democracy Ukrainian activists on VKontakte, a Russian social media platform he founded, during the Euromaidan movement.
He went on to obtain a series of other nationalities, including that of the United Arab Emirates, where Telegram operates, and France, in 2021. “As a French citizen, I agree that France is the best holiday destination,” Durov wrote in a Telegram post in June.
In April 2023, he changed his legal name in his French passport to “Paul du Rove,” a French adaptation of Pavel Durov — as recorded in the country’s Official Journal.
The conditions under which Durov was granted French citizenship, however, are unclear. Obtaining citizenship for foreign-born individuals usually requires having lived in France, which was not the case for Durov, according to a Le Monde report released last year.
According to Le Monde’s report, Durov became a French citizen through a special procedure under which “a French-speaking foreigner who contributes through his or her outstanding work to the influence of France and the prosperity of its international economic relations” can be awarded citizenship at the government’s initiative.
What led Durov to obtain this status was not made public, and his French linguistic skills are unknown.
A spokesperson for the French presidency told POLITICO that the call to grant Durov citizenship had been made by the foreign affairs ministry. The foreign affairs ministry said it “does not communicate on individual citizenship procedures.”
Durov sparked controversy in France in 2015 for claiming the French government was “as responsible as ISIS” for the series of attacks across the French capital led by the Islamic State group, which killed 138 people.