Radio France’s investigation unit has reconstructed the behind-the-scenes story of the French naturalization of Telegram boss Pavel Durov. From his French test at the Alliance Française in Dubai to the final green light, the case was followed at the highest level.
On December 10, 2020, it was a man “discreet” et “not very talkative” who enters the premises of the Alliance Française in Dubai. Pavel Dourov comes, like other candidates that day, to take a French test. “We were already quite into Telegram at the time, I remember jokes about the arrival of this young man with a big wallet. He was a VIP! Even in Dubai, that doesn’t happen every day. But he passed his exam like all the other students”remembers a member of the Alliance Française. Pavel Dourov therefore settles into a room.
Written and then oral tests. And he passed his test. The boss of Telegram, who wants to obtain French nationality, has just validated his DELF, Diploma of French Language Studies, level B1. An intermediate level that will not allow him, a few years later, during his police custody, to answer investigators in French. He will speak in Russian, then in English.
Although he passed his test, his registration did not go exactly as usual, recalls a source within the Alliance Française. “The Consulate intervened upstreamhe said. We were asked about the next dates for the French tests. But we were not immediately given the name of the person concerned. The diplomats here are very professional people. I felt that there was tension, pressure. I understood that it came from very high up.”
And indeed, in the case of Pavel Durov, the request came from the highest level of the state: the presidency of the Republic. “Emmanuel Macron had met the boss of Telegram and there was a desire on both sides for him to acquire French nationality”says a source close to the case, confirming the information from the Wall Street Journal.
Emmanuel Macron also takes responsibility for it. “totally”. He said this at a press conference in Belgrade on August 29, the day after Pavel Durov was indicted for illegal content published on his application. The head of state then explained that he was promoting profiles “who develop wealth, innovation, who shine in the world”.
“To the billionaires, the grateful homeland”summarizes Jules Lepoutre, professor of public law at the Côte-d’Azur University, who had already studied the case of Evan Spiegel a few years earlier. Tech boss, co-founder of Snapchat, he too had been naturalized French under the presidency of Emmanuel Macron. “While ordinary foreigners must reside in France for several years and go through long procedures, with naturalization becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, people like Durov or Spiegel see their files supported by the Quai d’Orsay according to very evanescent criteria, the academic believes. It’s a bit like the prince’s grace.”
The Quai d’Orsay is indeed in the loop and according to our information, it is sending the message that the case “will be followed up at the highest level but must be treated in accordance with the ordinary procedure, without special treatment”. According to several people contacted by the investigation unit of Radio France who were confronted with the Pavel Dourov case during this period, the boss of Telegram is a “libertarian, very business-oriented but also a cultured and brilliant man who prepared himself to meet the criteria for admission to nationality”. Paris therefore validates the file and Pavel Dourov becomes French in August 2021.
However, many alarming signals about the functioning of Telegram have been reported to the French authorities in recent years.
In 2016, in the midst of the post-attack period, the Minister of the Interior, Bernard Cazeneuve, publicly targeted the application used by the jihadists and “with whom the States have no interlocutor”The same year, the Paris public prosecutor François Molins explained to the newspaper: The World what “Telegram does not provide any information”adding: “I don’t know if things can change.”
Eight years later, things have hardly changed. Thus, in its press release announcing the indictment of Pavel Durov, the Paris prosecutor’s office points out “an almost total lack of response from Telegram to legal requests”.
When the decision was made to grant citizenship to Pavel Durov, lawyers also found themselves facing the “mur” Telegram. “I myself have come up against this silence which is very unpleasant”remembers Alexandre Lazarègue. While this lawyer specializing in digital law is concerned about a restriction by the judicial authorities of private exchange spaces, he still remembers his surprise over a specific case in 2018. “A bailiff showed up at the address given in Englandexplains the lawyer. The person who was there did not even sign our registered letters.”
In the summer of 2020, the Stop Fisha association, which fights against sexist and sexual cyberviolence, decided to alert the government. With the Covid crisis and the lockdown, the distribution of non-consensual photos of naked women, often minors, exploded on Telegram, on accounts called “fisha accounts”. “There were up to 230,000 people on one of its canals”says a member of the collective.
“We were then received by Cédric O, who was Secretary of State for Digital Affairs”adds this source. On Twitter, several photos of this meeting with this close friend of Emmanuel Macron are still accessible.
The meeting took place in June 2020, when the Pavel Durov naturalization file was launched. “We discussed the case of several platforms but we insisted on Telegramrecalls one of the participants. I remember it because we were very well received. We were on the same page. Cédric O told us to keep warning because we needed to see that side of Telegram.” Contacted by the Radio France investigation unit, Cédric O indicated that he did not wish to comment on the subject.
At the time, La République en Marche MP Laetitia Avia* was also made aware by the Stop Fisha association. She then introduced a bill against hateful content online, at the request of Emmanuel Macron: “At that time, I did not integrate Telegram which is considered as a messenger, not as public communication. And I also tell myself that we have bigger fish to catch like Twitter, Facebook or Instagram“. Telegram then represents 400 million users worldwide. Facebook, 2.7 billion. “We have not given ourselves the means to sanction Telegram”regrets Laetitia Avia who explains having discovered “like everyone else” the naturalization procedure of Pavel Durov. She would return to the subject years later with a very different vision: “Elon Musk and Twitter are choirboys compared to Telegram”.
Presumed innocent, Pavel Durov is required to report to a police station twice a week and is prohibited from leaving French territory.
*MP from 2017 to 2022, Laetitia Avia was sentenced in 2023 at first instance to six months in prison, suspended, and two years of ineligibility for moral harassment of former parliamentary assistants.
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