France Denies Telegram Founder Pavel Durov's Request To Visit US

Paris:

France has denied a request by Telegram founder Pavel Durov to travel to the United States for talks with investment funds, prosecutors said Thursday.

Durov, 40, was sensationally detained in Paris in 2024 and is under formal investigation by French authorities over illegal content on his popular messaging service.

In March, Durov was allowed to leave France and travel to Dubai, where his company is based.

Durov had “requested authorisation to travel to the United States to negotiate with investment funds for his company Telegram”, said the Paris public prosecutor’s office and the office for the fight against organised crime (JUNALCO).

Prosecutors said the decision was made on May 12.

“Such a trip abroad did not appear to be urgent or justified,” the prosecutor’s office added.

A source close to the case told AFP that Durov had requested permission to travel to the United States to meet with senior tech figures.

Since his arrest, Durov has announced steps appearing to bow to Paris’s demands for stronger efforts to ensure illegal content is not on his service

But he has also accused the chief of France’s DGSE foreign intelligence service of requesting to ban pro-conservative Romanian accounts from the platform ahead of last weekend’s elections.

The DGSE has rejected the claims.

Romanian nationalist candidate George Simion, who lost to Bucharest’s centrist Mayor Nicusor Dan, appealed to his country’s constitutional court to cancel the vote, alleging foreign interference, including by France.

Durov reposted Simion’s message on X, adding: “I’m ready to come and testify if it helps Romanian democracy.”

Durov’s lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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