Durov vs. DGSE: Telegram founder accuses French spy agency of political meddling

Telegram founder Pavel Durov has once again accused France’s foreign intelligence service of attempting to interfere in the politics of European countries, including Ukraine.

"French foreign intelligence confirmed they met with me — allegedly to fight terrorism and child porn. In reality, child porn was never even mentioned," Durov wrote on X, as reported by Caliber.Az, citing foreign media.

"They did want IPs of terror suspects in France, but their main focus was always geopolitics: Romania, Moldova, Ukraine," he added.

Previously, France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) firmly rejected Durov’s claims that its chief, Nicolas Lerner, had asked Telegram to block “conservative voices” in Romania ahead of the second round of the country’s presidential election on Sunday.

The DGSE acknowledged it had approached Durov multiple times with requests to prevent the spread of terrorist and child pornographic content but insisted it had never sought to interfere in the electoral process.

After the French Foreign Ministry labelled Durov’s claims about meddling in the Romanian election as “fake,” Durov doubled down, asserting that it was indeed French intelligence that made such a request.

According to Durov, Lerner personally asked him this spring, during a meeting at a Paris hotel, to "silence" supporters of far-right presidential candidate George Simion on the messaging platform — a request he said he refused.

Durov stated that he declined the request, emphasising: “We didn’t block protesters in Russia, Belarus, or Iran — and we’re not going to start doing it in Europe.”

Earlier, Durov had said that a “Western European government” asked Telegram to “silence conservative voices” ahead of Romania’s presidential election.

The Telegram team rejected the request with a strong statement:

"You can’t ‘defend democracy’ by destroying democracy. You can’t ‘fight election interference’ by interfering in elections. You either have free speech and fair elections — or you don’t."

Though Durov initially refrained from naming the country, he posted a baguette emoji in his message — a clear hint at France.

By Tamilla Hasanova