Pavel Durov, founder of Telegram, claimed that French President Emmanuel Macron is leading a coordinated attempt to impose mass surveillance on Europeans. According to the Russian entrepreneur, France has been the main driving force behind an initiative in the European Parliament that sought to force messaging platforms to scan all private messages.
“Once a government claims the right to inspect citizens' messages, freedom disappears” he stated. There, he explained that the project, presented under the pretext of fighting crime and child abuse, actually opened the door to a system of total surveillance over the private lives of millions of people.
Emmanuel Macron, presidente de Francia.
The founder of Telegram targeted political figures close to Macron, such as former Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau and his successor Laurent Nuñez, who openly supported the proposal. According to Durov, the law "would have created a system where ordinary citizens would be under permanent scrutiny".
The vote on this law in the European Parliament was postponed thanks to Germany's intervention, which expressed its opposition to the project, a decision that momentarily safeguards privacy in Europe. However, the entrepreneur warned that attempts to control the network have not ended: “Today we've defended privacy, but tomorrow they could try again”.
Several governments, led by Macron's, have insisted on the need to expand state powers under the argument of security, a trend that numerous analysts describe as authoritarian. French interest in the matter is not new; the Executive has multiplied tools for social control, surveillance on networks, and monitoring of communications in recent years.
Macron, durante la pandemia de COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Telegram, which has over 900 million users worldwide, remains one of the last strongholds against the pressure from European governments seeking to restrict end-to-end encryption and control the information that circulates freely on the internet.
For Durov, the defense of privacy is inseparable from the defense of democracy. "Real criminals will always find ways to hide, but honest citizens will lose their right to privacy," he warned.
