Telegram founder Pavel Durov reportedly told police he was scheduled to have dinner with Macron on the day he was arrested, according to the investigative newspaper Le Canard Enchaine. – Source
Following the report, Florian Philippot, leader of Les Patriots Party, accused Macron of deceit, suggesting the arrest was a tactic to silence those defending freedom of expression.
The French presidency quickly denied the newspaper's claim. – Source
Six years before Pavel Durov landed in a French holding cell, the antiestablishment founder of the messaging app Telegram was in a very different position in France: having lunch with President Emmanuel Macron.
At the lunch in 2018, which hasn’t been previously reported, Macron invited the Russian-born Durov to move Telegram to Paris, people familiar with the discussions said Durov declined at the time. – WSJ
According to the outlet, in 2017, French spies, in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates, hacked Durov’s iPhone in a previously undisclosed covert operation codenamed "Purple Music."
Despite the 2018 meeting with Macron, French authorities had long harbored “suspicions” about Telegram. A former French General Directorate for Internal Security official mentioned that compromising Telegram had been a long-term objective for the country’s intelligence services, but declined to comment on the hacking operation targeting Durov.
Did the President of France personally lure Pavel to France to arrest him?
Posted by External-Noise-4832
2 Comments
It just keeps getting weirder. The Canard Enchainé (France’s most renowned investigation newspaper) reveals that Pavel Durov told the policemen who arrested him when he landed that he came to have dinner with Macron.
Pavel had lunch with Emmanuel Macron six years ago and Macron invited Durov to move Telegram to France, the WSJ reported.
Did Macron himself set up a trap to lure Durov to his arrest?
You have been arrested because your platform shows harmful truths and factually correct information about a certain state that shows them in an unfavourable way.