Pavel Durov Calls France a Threat to Messenger Security

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has criticized the French government’s recent push to introduce a “backdoor” into all messaging apps, calling it a serious threat to privacy and digital security.

In a statement on his official channel, Durov said the French Senate passed a law last month that would have required messaging apps to give police access to users’ communications. The bill narrowly failed to pass after being rejected by the National Assembly.

Durov warned that if enacted, the legislation would have made France the first country in the world to strip its citizens of encrypted messaging. Not even countries “with authoritarian reputations,” he said, have dared to ban end-to-end encryption.

He added that a backdoor would pose extreme risks — once created, there’s no way to ensure it would only be used by law enforcement. Hackers and foreign intelligence services could exploit it too.

Even if major apps were forced to weaken encryption, Durov argued, criminals would simply move to smaller, less-known platforms — pushing illicit activity further underground. The bill wouldn’t stop crime, he said, but would seriously compromise the safety of everyday users.

Durov also noted that in 12 years of operation, Telegram has never disclosed a single byte of user chats. When required by law, the platform shares only IP addresses and phone numbers of suspects — and only under strict legal procedures.

Still, Durov sees this as a temporary win for privacy. The European Commission is already proposing similar legislation, and the fight for digital freedom, he says, continues every day.