Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder of the Telegram messaging app, has made a startling claim, accusing French intelligence of attempting to blackmail him into censoring political voices during Moldova’s recent election.
Durov, who is currently under judicial supervision in France after being arrested at an airport last year, stated that French intelligence used an intermediary to request that he “censor” certain Telegram channels on behalf of the Moldovan government. The request came as Moldovans were voting in a crucial parliamentary election that could decide the country’s future with the European Union.
In a post on his Telegram channel, Durov stated that he had removed a few channels that clearly violated the app’s terms of service. However, he said the intermediary then informed him that, in exchange for his cooperation, French intelligence would “say good things” about him to the judge in his case, a deal he deemed “unacceptable.”
“If the agency did in fact approach the judge, it constituted an attempt to interfere in the judicial process,” Durov wrote. “If it did not… then it was exploiting my legal situation in France to influence political developments in Eastern Europe.”
This isn’t the first time Durov has made such accusations. In May, he claimed French intelligence asked him to ban conservative voices in Romania ahead of elections there, a claim the French government denied. The French foreign ministry responded to his latest claim on X, saying, “After Romania, Moldova. @durov likes making accusations while elections are ongoing.”
