Pavel Durov Speaks Out for the First Time Since His Politically-Motivated Arrest in France

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Speaker 2 Well, I'm glad you're still here.

Speaker 2 I'm also glad I'm still here. Yes.

Speaker 4 I mean, those of us who know you and who have followed you looked at our phones one morning in August, I think, and it was Pavel Drup disappears in France, arrested.

Speaker 4 And then, you know, no one heard from you for several days. It was, it was kind of,

Speaker 4 it was actually kind of a pivot point in the way I understand Europe, speaking for myself. So if you don't mind, I don't think you've done any interviews since then.

Speaker 2 What, like, what

Speaker 4 that day? Just like the events of the day. Let's start there.
August last year.

Speaker 2 August last year. I arrived to Paris and I'm greeted in the airport by Finland.
What were you doing here? I just,

Speaker 2 for touristic purposes, I was just hanging around for a couple of days and then I was supposed to go to Finland after.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I wasn't supposed to stay. There was no business meeting.
of any kind.

Speaker 2 And I was greeted by policemen. They asked me certain questions, asked me to follow them.

Speaker 4 Were you confused? Like, why are policemen meeting me at the area?

Speaker 2 Definitely. At first, I thought there may be some additional security checks because of the Olympics, of the Paralympics, something's going on.

Speaker 2 Julia, my girlfriend, she was worried. She was asking me, is it all right?

Speaker 4 I said, it's all right.

Speaker 2 It's France. It's Fox.

Speaker 2 Of course.

Speaker 2 And then they read me a list of charges, like, I know, 16 charges, all kinds of crimes. I was very confused at first because I have nothing to do with crime.
I've never been convicted.

Speaker 2 I have, you know, we are a company that is trying to comply with

Speaker 2 the best standards. And

Speaker 2 so

Speaker 2 at that moment, I realized that it's not something I did, it's something other people did using the app I created, Telegram, which is used by a billion people. So probably some people.

Speaker 2 Do you know all of them?

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, not. Okay.

Speaker 2 um

Speaker 2 i try my best to meet more but uh so yeah and then i was uh put into a car

Speaker 2 and uh with a small motorcade with police cars with sirens and uh

Speaker 2 which is funny because in previous in the previous countries that i visited i also was accompanied by motorcades because i was visiting the heads of states there

Speaker 2 And here in France, there was a certain consistency. So I was greeted in the same way, so to say.

Speaker 4 Were you like texting?

Speaker 2 I couldn't because they took my phone. And I wasn't allowed to...
They immediately took your phone? Yeah, I wasn't allowed to contact anyone except for my assistant, who I

Speaker 2 asked to find me some lawyers and reach out to certain friends that I have and try to understand what was going on.

Speaker 2 And then I spent four days in police custody, the building in south of Paris that

Speaker 2 that is I think run by the police customs the customs police officers or the department whatever and there I had to answer a lot of questions but you spent four days with no contact no phone yes in what kind of accommodations

Speaker 2 was a seven square seven square meter room or 70 square feet room no windows

Speaker 2 concrete block

Speaker 2 a bed this narrow,

Speaker 2 no linen, no pillow, a mattress this thin, like yoga mat this thin, maybe one centimeter, half inch.

Speaker 2 And that's it. And constantly

Speaker 2 blinking light, which was a bit annoying. Locked door?

Speaker 2 Yeah, the door was very securely locked, I must say.

Speaker 4 So you're in a cell?

Speaker 2 Yes, it was a solitary cell, so to say. There were no other people there.

Speaker 4 So they put you in solitary confinement?

Speaker 2 You could say that, yes.

Speaker 4 Well, that sounds like that's what it is.

Speaker 2 Well, it wasn't a prison or jail. It wasn't.
Well, if there's a locked door, no pillow.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but legally speaking, it wasn't. Yeah, legally speaking.
So

Speaker 2 legally speaking,

Speaker 4 why were you being held against your will by the French government? Did you ever, in the first four days, did they make it clear to you?

Speaker 2 So I understood that they were worried about the alleged

Speaker 2 lack of response from Telegram towards the judicial requests coming from France, which turned out to be not true, because we've never received a single legally binding legal request coming from France.

Speaker 2 So I was even more confused. And

Speaker 2 I asked the French policeman, why haven't you been following the European law and serving your legal requests in the way prescribed by this law?

Speaker 2 It's defined by the Digital Services Act and it's there.

Speaker 2 You can Google the process,

Speaker 2 you can read the privacy policy of Telegram. It's easily accessible on the website.
So why didn't you do it?

Speaker 2 And they didn't answer, but thanks to God they started to do it.

Speaker 2 And then they started to receive responses helping them to identify criminal suspects, meaning we would disclose IP address and phone number

Speaker 2 of

Speaker 2 people who were suspects in criminal investigations when we received court orders signed by a judge.

Speaker 2 And this was something that we had in place since a year ago before that. So it's not something that the French have forced us to do.
It's something that we already had in place.

Speaker 2 We had a company in Belgium processing these requests. Other countries have successfully been using this process.

Speaker 2 But somehow the French have ignored it completely.

Speaker 2 And this is why you know, I was very surprised. They say, why haven't you been doing this? But this is the process.

Speaker 4 And to be clear, I mean, I think this is like standard for social media companies.

Speaker 4 A company, whether it's Facebook or X or Snapchat or any of them, get a court order from a country in which they have users.

Speaker 4 And the court order says, you know, we have a reason to believe this person is a criminal. Can we have the IP address? I think they all comply with that, correct?

Speaker 2 Yes. Well, it's the DSA law.
If you don't comply with it,

Speaker 2 you can be fined, you can be banned.

Speaker 2 Well, it's a question whether you want to continue providing your service in the European Union, but it's only concerns, it only concerns the identification data, meaning IP address, and in some cases, phone number of the suspect.

Speaker 2 It has nothing to do with, for example,

Speaker 2 private messages of a person or other kinds of activity, which is much more protected and much more private. Even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to disclose this information.

Speaker 2 But it's not required by the law.

Speaker 4 Yes, but what you're describing is like the state of play across Europe anyway for all the companies. Exactly.
Okay. So, but

Speaker 4 because this is like a normal thing that's already take its process that everyone recognizes and it's been ongoing, you must be very confused as to why you're being held in this jail that they're not calling a jail.

Speaker 4 Were you confused? Like, were you worried?

Speaker 2 It was very hard talking.

Speaker 4 If I stepped off an airplane and a bunch of cops showed up, took my phone away and threw me in the back of a car and took me to a cell, even though they pretended it was not a a jail, but wouldn't let me out and lock the door for four days without being able to contact my family.

Speaker 4 I'd be concerned. Were you concerned?

Speaker 2 That was very surprising. I was shocked.

Speaker 2 You're very diplomatic. You know, at first I thought there was some mistake.

Speaker 2 They got their own guy. Yeah.
I thought

Speaker 2 they listed, they read the list of charges. They have nothing to do with these crimes.
Like organized crimes, selling drugs, all those things. Like, what do I have to do with that?

Speaker 2 Then I realized it's serious because they're not letting me out. Like, they

Speaker 2 keep

Speaker 2 me there

Speaker 2 in this selling.

Speaker 4 Okay, but just for perspective, so you've got a billion users. It's a multi-billion dollar company.
You started the company, you own the company. It's a huge company.

Speaker 2 It's one of the biggest social media companies in the world.

Speaker 4 And so there's a process. So if they think the Telegram is doing something wrong, they send letters to your general counsel or maybe get your phone number, which I'm sure they can pretty easily get.

Speaker 4 French intelligence, I'm sure, has everybody's phone number and just call you and tell you, I've never heard of a CEO of a multi-billion dollar company getting arrested at the airport for

Speaker 2 on grounds like this. Well, you're very right.
It never happened before. It's like completely

Speaker 2 outrageous. It's unprecedented, right? Never.

Speaker 2 So it's something that I think was very unnecessary.

Speaker 2 Because on top of what you just described, described, I'm also a French citizen. So, in

Speaker 4 how did you wind up? Because you're not from France originally.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm not from France originally, but I have certain ties to France, and I was awarded, so to say, this citizenship for

Speaker 2 using a specific process, which took several years, but I didn't cut any corners. Like, I had to pass the French exam test.

Speaker 2 Like, if I had to do certain things that you would normally do when you're a- because you wanted to be a French citizen. I wanted.
I love the country. It's a great country.
It's a great culture.

Speaker 2 Of course, these events are alarming. And that's why I think it makes sense to speak about them.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 the most interesting part of it is that every French citizen has his or her personal home address in the passport. So the authorities of France know very well how to reach out to this person.

Speaker 2 He's there or she's there.

Speaker 2 And on top of that, the Consulate of France is located in the same building as the Telegram office in Dubai.

Speaker 4 So, the same building.

Speaker 2 The same building.

Speaker 2 I've been to the building.

Speaker 4 You've been to the building.

Speaker 2 It's not a huge building, by the way.

Speaker 2 Not really. And it's just two floors below.

Speaker 4 So, two floors from the French consulate?

Speaker 2 We're two floors from the French Consulate. And I was a frequent visitor to the consulate.
And whenever

Speaker 2 any French agency authority or representative of France, of the government, wanted to see me, they had no issue whatsoever arranging such meetings. And these meetings took place.

Speaker 2 I was happy to just go two floors below my office and have a conversation or invite them to our office. So it's very, very strange what happened because it could have been resolved by different means.

Speaker 4 Well, obviously, they they went way out of their way to humiliate you to issue they announced that they arrested you i mean you were not obviously scanning google for news stories about yourself because you didn't you couldn't i couldn't but the rest of us were and they announced we've arrested paw durov and arms sales or drug sales or kiddie porn or i mean who knows like horrible it's like what

Speaker 4 So they were trying to terrify you and humiliate you, obviously.

Speaker 2 This is something that was also very unusual. So what my lawyers told me here in France, that normally the prosecutor's office is not that public.

Speaker 2 They are not issuing press statements every day and they're not commenting on their investigations, which was not the case with me, where they were very active. They were trying to...

Speaker 4 Have you gone back? So you were, of course, you were locked up and you couldn't read the coverage, but have you gone back and read it for those four days when you were being held?

Speaker 2 Well, when I was in police custody, I heard from one of the policemen. He told me

Speaker 2 every newspaper in the world is covering this

Speaker 2 and is mentioning you. And I said, What's going on? He said, Well, a lot of people are supportive.

Speaker 2 But I asked him, What do newspapers write about this case? And he told me, Everything but truth.

Speaker 2 And I freaked out at that moment, like, everything but truth, seriously.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 4 when I went

Speaker 2 in these four days ended and I was can I just ask like what was your family doing and you've got children and parents and like what were

Speaker 2 to be honest this is the hardest part because I'm pretty stress resilient so I can take care of myself but being there locked there thinking about what's going on with my mom, you know, she's she's very ill.

Speaker 2 She's very elderly.

Speaker 2 She was very worried, as i learned after uh what's going on with with my kids and and this is something that gets to you and uh and you couldn't contact them no there's no way because you don't have access to any device or you can't even read anything what did they think was going on

Speaker 2 and they were very surprised and very confused and very worried.

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Speaker 4 Just for perspective, those who don't know your story won't tell the whole story. It's an amazing story.
We did an interview with you maybe a year and a half ago in which you told your story.

Speaker 4 You're Russian, as people can probably hear in your voice, and

Speaker 4 sound like pretty happy in Russia, successful in Russia. You had to leave Russia for political reasons.
The government was trying to use your company for its own purposes. You didn't want to be used.

Speaker 4 You left your own country

Speaker 4 and moved, well, moved around, but wound up in Dubai in France.

Speaker 4 Were you ever arrested by Putin?

Speaker 2 No. No.

Speaker 4 Okay.

Speaker 4 Just to put a finer point on this, I mean, I'm not defending Putin, but you were arrested by the French government in the Free West.

Speaker 4 Did you ever kind of see the irony there?

Speaker 2 That was the most unexpected place to get arrested for me, because before in this trip, I visited several countries.

Speaker 2 Some of these countries are considered in the West to be autocratic or authoritarian.

Speaker 2 But I had in and and and Telgram is very, very popular in these countries I visited before coming to Paris. And I had zero issues whatsoever, despite the fact that Telegram

Speaker 2 does zero

Speaker 2 censorship in terms of political speech. And Telegram provides 100%

Speaker 2 privacy and confidentiality to its users in all these places.

Speaker 4 So you do not extract personal information from your users.

Speaker 2 Unlike our computer, yes. We never do that.
Okay.

Speaker 4 But other companies, I mean, Facebook is,

Speaker 4 I mean, mean, Meta is very rich because they extract that personal data, right?

Speaker 2 That's their business model.

Speaker 4 That's right, but I'm not attacking them. Sorry, I am attacking them.

Speaker 2 But that's what they do, and you don't do that.

Speaker 2 Yes, right. We don't have to do that.
We

Speaker 2 came up with ways to monetize Telegram without having to abuse people's personal data this way. So Telegram became profitable last year and very profitable, more than half a billion dollars in profit

Speaker 2 without having to rely on methods like this when you have to extract personal data and then use it for targeting ads for example

Speaker 2 we have very successful subscription paid subscription

Speaker 2 servers on telegram

Speaker 2 we have you know we monetize in it in ways that are consistent with our values that are voluntary yeah i mean your users have to sign up for the things

Speaker 4 that make you money. Yeah, because not just stealing their data from them.
Exactly.

Speaker 2 And the service is free and we just crossed 1 billion monthly user

Speaker 2 threshold or milestone. Congratulations.
Thank you. So it's growing very fast and we are very happy with what we are.
We are very proud with what we do.

Speaker 2 Because if you look at any mobile messaging app right now, and we're number two after you can guess which other app, we're the second most popular messaging app in the world uh

Speaker 2 but most of the features that you use uh on a modern messaging app first appeared first were created by telegram and then they were borrowed we came up with a list of like 100 such features and those are not like small things those are basic things that you uh know in uh every modern messaging app like uh the way uh

Speaker 2 you uh respond to messages, the way you share links, the way you share documents,

Speaker 2 the text formatting, many, many, many, many things, like dozens of those first appeared on Telegram. And then three to eight years after, they've been copied by our rivals.

Speaker 2 one of which is larger than Telegram and others are smaller. But still, we are proud.
I'm not going to guess.

Speaker 2 We're grain one.

Speaker 2 Yes. But we are proud that

Speaker 2 we've been able to shape what the industry is like today and define how billions of people communicate.

Speaker 4 But it's just, I'm just going back to like this story, which is, by the way, I love your Slavic deadpan approach to this.

Speaker 2 It's like, it's crazy.

Speaker 4 I mean, if Mark Zuckerberg or Elon got grabbed, you know, at the private part of de Gaulle airport, you'd be like, stop there.

Speaker 2 Like, what? The world is ending. But they grabbed you and people are like, oh, he's got a Russian last name.
It's fine. I'm sure.
It's a good reason.

Speaker 2 Wow.

Speaker 2 I hope it had nothing to do with my ethnicity because that's. Of course it did.
Are you joking?

Speaker 2 That would be very alarming.

Speaker 4 Because you got run out of Russia, by the way.

Speaker 2 I just want to say that again. You got run out.

Speaker 4 You'd probably still be living there if you hadn't had to leave. So it's clear you didn't participate in whatever they're mad about in Russia.
You're gone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, but it still can make you an easier target.

Speaker 4 I'm aware of that.

Speaker 2 Because people don't know my story, right? People, not everybody watched our last interview and not everybody had a where was the out?

Speaker 4 So, I was, well, I know you, and obviously, I like you, so, and I like what you're doing. I like your commitment to privacy and to the user, and I think the users

Speaker 4 privacy should play a role in your, in your thinking about a business. And that's what my view.
And you agree, most companies don't agree. So, I'm on your side.

Speaker 4 But where were all the civil libertarians jumping to your defense? Like, how can you just grab someone at the airport? Because,

Speaker 2 well, because who knows why? Can you just do that?

Speaker 4 Put him in jail for four days, take his phone. Like, where were your defenders?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 2 to be fair, some people did

Speaker 2 pick up

Speaker 2 and defended me. And I actually, there were more than 10 million or more than, I think, a very big number of people who signed a petition to free me.

Speaker 2 So it was

Speaker 2 a very, very large movement.

Speaker 4 I'm thinking more like the United Nations human rights watchdogs. Like, where are they?

Speaker 4 If this happened in North Korea,

Speaker 4 which

Speaker 4 I don't know, it hasn't.

Speaker 4 But if it happened there, we'd be like, oh my gosh, it's Stalinism. But it happens in France.
And you're like, oh, I'm sure there's a good reason.

Speaker 2 That's what makes the situation so complicated, because

Speaker 2 we

Speaker 2 have to look at the instances

Speaker 2 such as this one, regardless of

Speaker 2 which jurisdiction

Speaker 2 I was born in, which jurisdiction is conducting this investigation, it should be completely

Speaker 2 unbiased, right? So

Speaker 2 it's very concerning.

Speaker 2 Did they ask you questions about Russia during your four days of entertainment? I think so, but it wasn't the focus of the questioning.

Speaker 2 The most questions were about the

Speaker 2 way Telegram operates, operates, as if it's some kind of mystery.

Speaker 2 We're a big company. We are audited by a big four

Speaker 2 auditing firm.

Speaker 2 We work with the biggest financial institutions. So we're a big company.
We spend millions of dollars every quarter on legal compliance.

Speaker 2 So we pay to law firms to receive the best advice in order to make sure we don't violate laws anywhere. And we operate in almost 200 countries.
So it was very, very surprising for me to

Speaker 2 get detained in Paris and learn that Telegram did something wrong or didn't process some requests.

Speaker 2 And then when I learned more about it, I realized that we did actually nothing wrong because the law is very clear

Speaker 2 in describing the process that should be followed. in order for this request to be processed.
And it wasn't followed.

Speaker 4 And that's something that French prosecutors could have found out in about six minutes.

Speaker 2 Obviously. That's the irony of it.

Speaker 2 You could Google Telegram police contact, Telegram EU corporation, whatever, and it would be instantly visible online for anybody who has access to Google.

Speaker 2 For some reason, it wasn't used by the Transport. Right.

Speaker 4 And you have to think that there's like a reason. Before I ask about that, how was the food in French prison, by the way?

Speaker 2 I think they made some exception in relation to food for me. So it was fine.
I was fine. It was pretty good.

Speaker 2 I don't eat meat. I don't eat fast food.
So I was good with

Speaker 2 enough fish and I could do my 200 push-ups in the morning, like 200 squats. And then I repeated it because I didn't have access to a gym.
So I kept my routine there.

Speaker 4 Did you join a gang?

Speaker 2 No, I was alone there.

Speaker 4 in your cell um that's just the whole thing's incredible so where does it stand now you know we're in i should say we're in france right now you're still in france i'm still in france um many many months later eight almost eight months

Speaker 4 eight months later you're still in france um why are you still here

Speaker 2 so there is this uh

Speaker 2 limitation on my travel,

Speaker 2 traveling ability, so to say, which is called judicial control judicial control is when you can't leave the country freely because there is still investigation going on and you're one of the suspects or the suspect I was still

Speaker 2 being allowed to go to Dubai and I returned last week from Dubai and I will be going to Dubai later this week but it's it's a very very restricted controlled

Speaker 2 process still

Speaker 4 and what's the idea there Since you own a multi-billion dollar company with a billion users that's really famous, like where would you go on planet Earth if you were going to run away?

Speaker 2 Well, that's exactly like my

Speaker 2 the source of my misunderstanding and my confusion here. So where I'm not running anywhere and you know I've been to Dubai, came back.

Speaker 2 So it's very hard for me to understand my role in being here because I'm required to answer some questions in relation to Telegram every like fifth month or fourth month. So

Speaker 2 the other like three or four months, I am just

Speaker 2 having to be here for reasons that are very hard for me to understand.

Speaker 2 What's their argument?

Speaker 4 I mean, I'm just confused. See, no one's actually, despite the headlines that flooded the world in August when you were arrested, detained, whatever they're calling it, put in a cell,

Speaker 4 you were not involved in kiddie porn. drug sales, organized crime, armed sales.
I can't even remember, but like the worst crimes in the world.

Speaker 4 No one is actually claiming you were involved in those crimes, correct?

Speaker 2 Correct. Okay.

Speaker 4 They're saying that you had, of your billion users, there were a few who may have been doing bad things. And you're saying, I tried, but I didn't know that.
It's not my fault, right?

Speaker 2 Correct.

Speaker 4 It'd be like saying to Donald Trump, there are 350 million people in America, you know, one-third the number of users you have, and some of them are using kiddie porn or selling drugs or organized driving.

Speaker 4 We're putting you in jail for it.

Speaker 2 I mean, that's like, it's insane.

Speaker 4 So why are you still here? Like, what is the claim against you?

Speaker 2 I'm still trying to find out, to be honest. I'm still confused.
So at first they said, oh, you failed to respond to our legal requests, and that's why you're complicit. But first of all,

Speaker 2 it's not true that we didn't respond to legally binding legal requests. And secondly,

Speaker 2 it's a very

Speaker 2 extensive interpretation of complicity, even for the French

Speaker 2 legal and judicial system.

Speaker 2 What I hear from my lawyers is that it's quite unprecedented. They had a couple of really small niche apps that are like 10,000 smaller than Telegram and were targeted specifically at criminals.

Speaker 2 They were nothing like Telegram. They didn't even have these companies that they didn't even have bank accounts.

Speaker 2 it was a different profile they were not audited by big four

Speaker 2 uh organization but

Speaker 2 it's these companies have been persecuted in france before

Speaker 2 and their

Speaker 2 founders i understand

Speaker 2 were accused of running a platform that is created for the purpose to facilitate crime.

Speaker 2 It's pretty much obvious that Telgram is not such a company, right? So it has a billion users. Every eighth person on the planet is a user of Telegram,

Speaker 2 a regular one.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's incomprehensible to assume that all these

Speaker 2 people are criminals. And everybody knows the story of Telegram very well.
It's not something that was built for criminals.

Speaker 2 However,

Speaker 2 this reasoning, as far as I understand, is being used also in our case. They say that, all right, so you

Speaker 2 created this app and this app was used by other people.

Speaker 2 They were criminals and you didn't do enough to prevent them from doing what they were doing.

Speaker 2 Which again is contrary to what we see on other platforms.

Speaker 2 Like you have instances where problematic content exists despite the best efforts of social media platforms, moderation teams, and so on and so forth. It's almost impossible to avoid that.

Speaker 4 But the claim itself just conceptually doesn't make sense. I mean, if someone commits armed robbery in Burgundy or Toulouse or Nice, can President Macron be arrested for that?

Speaker 4 Because it's his country. He runs the country.
And he didn't do enough to stop the armed robbery in Toulouse. Like, how can that stand? Why isn't he in jail? Like,

Speaker 2 that's nuts. Well, the logic also eludes me, so to say.

Speaker 4 Back with the Russian understatement. No,

Speaker 4 so look, here's the inescapable conclusion, I think, as from a bystander's perspective, that they do this in public rather than just calling you. So we have a problem.

Speaker 2 We can work it out or call your lawyers.

Speaker 4 They arrest you in public. They slander you.
They try and tie you to the worst crimes man commits.

Speaker 4 And then they put you in jail.

Speaker 4 And so they're trying to sweat you, to intimidate you,

Speaker 4 to wear you down in order to get into the back door of Telegram so they can spy on people,

Speaker 4 probably really for political reasons.

Speaker 4 What they're really worried about is a revolt in their own country. Every government's really worried mostly about its own population revolting against this bad governance.

Speaker 4 Like that's their real fear. And they hate Telegram because it offers users privacy, and that's a threat to them.
And so they force you as the owner of the company to give them the keys.

Speaker 2 That's what it looks like. Well, to be clear, nobody approached me with the demand to give the so-called keys.
Such keys don't exist technically.

Speaker 2 But if somebody approaches me and says, we need the keys, you'll be among the first to learn about it. But that hasn't happened.
Well, actually, the U.S.

Speaker 4 government pushed you. I remember the FBI was trying to.
Yeah.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Because this is something governments want, not just of you, but of all social media companies.

Speaker 2 You know what's interesting? In the U.S., you have a process

Speaker 2 that allows the government to actually force any engineer in any tech company to implement a backdoor and not tell anyone about it with using this process called the gag order. And

Speaker 2 there are certain legal procedures.

Speaker 4 Not tell his own employer about it?

Speaker 2 And not, yes, exactly. If you tell your own boss, you can end up in jail, like gag order.
This is actually? Yeah. This is something that's on Wikipedia.
In France,

Speaker 4 in the Soviet Union or in the U.S.? In the U.S.

Speaker 4 Okay. I'm not criticizing.
So your employees have a legal obligation to act as fifth column spies, saboteurs against you, your employees.

Speaker 2 Well, that's one of the reasons we didn't discuss last time why I didn't move to the U.S. with my team.

Speaker 4 And you got mugged in San Francisco on your one trip there.

Speaker 2 Exactly.

Speaker 2 But I did this extensive legal analysis. Like, I asked my lawyers, the U.S.
lawyers, what is this thing called the gag order?

Speaker 2 And they explained it to me and how it works and how it could potentially be applied. So we decided maybe not the best place for a privacy-oriented platform.

Speaker 2 But here in France, we really don't know because there are a lot of conspiracy theories about it. And at first, I thought, I also started to be concerned, like, what is this about?

Speaker 2 But then, when the French police and the French judges started to send their requests in accordance to the European law to Telegram and receive the identification data, I mean the IP address of criminal suspects.

Speaker 2 They seemed to become very happy. They expressed their joy in the press.
They said, oh, Telegram is now cooperating. All of a sudden, as if it was something new.

Speaker 4 Can I ask you to pause? When they said that, I remember that very well. Yeah.

Speaker 4 That sounded to me like they were trying to discredit you and were sending the message because they were not specific. They just said they're cooperating.

Speaker 4 And that made it sound to the rest of the world like, oh, they broke Pavel. They hung him by his ankles and burned him with Galois until he finally gave up and turned over the back end to them.

Speaker 4 And now they're spying on all Telegram users. You're cooperating like you would in East Germany in 1975.
That's what it sounded like.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's why it's so important to clarify this, because this perception is not only bad for Telegram, it's even worse for the image image of france because if you if you think about it france is still a land where laws and legal procedures should be adhered to and even in this case if you want additional access uh to certain data personal data it has to be done in accordance with laws.

Speaker 2 And then every company, for example us, we never disclose private messaging data to any third party, including governments.

Speaker 2 And if it's in some country, they would say you have to do it, we would discontinue providing services in that country, then doing it.

Speaker 4 Isn't that why you left Russia in the first place? Yes. So you've been through this.
You left your own country because you refused to give up the privacy of the user.

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 But here it's catching up because last month the Senate here in France passed a law basically banning encryption. This law was

Speaker 2 forcing all messaging app providers to implement the backdoor for the French law enforcement to fight crime. The problem here was...
Fight crime. Well, exactly.

Speaker 2 Because the problem here was there is no such thing as an exclusive backdoor. If you implement the backdoor, technically

Speaker 2 other

Speaker 2 actors are able to exploit it. And it could be foreign agents, it could be hackers, it could be anyone.
So that law would have put millions of people or tens of millions of French citizens in danger.

Speaker 2 Their private messages would have been exposed.

Speaker 2 The criminals, however, would have instantly switched to niche

Speaker 2 smaller apps, not mainstream apps. And if the government

Speaker 2 would try to ban these apps, they would switch to VPNs. They would even become more efficient in hiding their traces.
So the criminals would experience zero problems

Speaker 2 if that law is passed. It's the law-abiding citizens who would be affected.
And that's why it's so problematic. And nobody was talking about it.

Speaker 2 I asked my French friends, like, have you heard about this law? Like, no.

Speaker 2 They were completely unaware. And luckily, the National Assembly here in France shot that bill down.
So it didn't pass this time.

Speaker 2 But if you look at the new project by the EU, by the European Commission,

Speaker 2 published in early April,

Speaker 2 they again want to do exactly that, to backdoor encryption, but now on the EU level. And that raises many serious questions because no country in the world banned encryption so far.

Speaker 2 Even the places that you would consider authoritarian places, for reasons that I just described,

Speaker 2 it's just a huge threat for the entire population to

Speaker 2 all users to legally force companies to implement backdoors.

Speaker 2 So I think it's very important that people talk about these things. First of all, that France is not

Speaker 2 a country where freedoms are disrespected.

Speaker 2 For example, if people assume that France can now take CEOs of

Speaker 2 tech companies

Speaker 2 hostage in such a way that you describe, and then extract certain personal data from them using illegal and unlawful processes.

Speaker 2 That would be a big, big blow for the image of France. But I don't think we're there because we haven't.

Speaker 4 You might chip away at this concept of the rules-based order.

Speaker 4 The rules-based order, which everyone in NATO is always lecturing everybody else about.

Speaker 2 The rules-based order. There's nothing rules-based about about what they did to you.

Speaker 4 I'm sorry. I mean, that's just that's might makes right.
That's we have guns and you don't.

Speaker 6 It's our airport, not yours.

Speaker 4 You're going to jail. I just don't see the legal justification for doing this to anybody.

Speaker 2 It was excessive, in my view.

Speaker 2 But it was also a sign that,

Speaker 2 again, in my view, this investigation was not based on thorough analysis of what Telegram represents and

Speaker 2 what the goals of the company are. And again, there has been no attempt and they had

Speaker 2 didn't even try to solve this in a more traditional, conventional way before starting.

Speaker 4 A legal way, actually.

Speaker 2 A legal and diplomatic way.

Speaker 4 What did they do with your phone?

Speaker 2 Well, they just kept my phone. I hope they scrutinize it because there they have a lot of proof that actually Telegram is a completely legitimate and compliant organization.
And we have spent

Speaker 2 huge funds on content moderation and legal compliance all over the world since like 10 years ago. So they're welcome to have my phone.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so Telegram issued bonds a few years ago. We were

Speaker 2 happy to have

Speaker 2 the assistance of JP Morgan, the world's biggest bank.

Speaker 2 World's biggest bank.

Speaker 4 So, I only asked, I knew that, and I just want you to say it because just to underscore the point, it says you're not like some

Speaker 4 Belarusian college student doing this out of your room or something.

Speaker 4 This is like a worldwide huge company. It's just absolutely crazy.
And it doesn't have as deep penetration in the United States as it does in the rest of the world.

Speaker 4 So, I just want people to know this is not some sketchy deal. This is like, I can't, I just can't believe they did that.

Speaker 4 Where are you now in the process?

Speaker 2 So the process is

Speaker 2 not going too fast, but this is the tradition here in France. So I'm not.

Speaker 4 I'm just visiting for a couple days. Do you think I'll get out of here?

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 2 I haven't been granted a fast track

Speaker 2 in my case.

Speaker 2 And,

Speaker 2 you know, I've just seen my investigative judges. They have this

Speaker 2 role of investigative judges here in France. So my current status is I'm not on trial.
It's an investigation intended to find out whether there'll be enough evidence to put this on trial.

Speaker 2 So I'm not even on trial yet.

Speaker 4 But you're basically imprisoned in France.

Speaker 2 But I... Well, I'm not imprisoned.

Speaker 2 Can you leave whenever you want? I can't leave France freely. That's true.

Speaker 4 So how is that not imprisoned?

Speaker 4 I mean, they're great restaurants.

Speaker 4 You know what I mean? It's not a commissary with guys with face tattoos, but if you can't leave, then aren't you by definition imprisoned?

Speaker 2 You could say so.

Speaker 2 I just don't want to create this image of a real prison in the minds of our viewers.

Speaker 4 So this is, I don't know if anyone can see the cell we're in.

Speaker 2 It's pretty nice. Room service and everything.
I mean, no, it's France.

Speaker 4 It's like very first world in some ways, but not in its attitudes, I'm learning.

Speaker 4 So how long will that continue? And you've got children, you know, and a life and a business and friends and family. And they're not in France, so far as I know.

Speaker 2 Yes, they're all in Dubai. And I have kids in Dubai that I am unable to

Speaker 2 not just see, I'm unable to legally take care of them by signing certain documents I have to sign. And I've, you know it's it's been

Speaker 2 very stressful also to my mom for my mom

Speaker 2 who is gravely ill and I can't see her

Speaker 2 I also have this company to run we have a billion users it's it's it's it's important

Speaker 2 and I am doing it remotely now but it's not as efficient so if you if you think about it France is less than one percent of the Telegram user base.

Speaker 2 It's something like half of 1%.

Speaker 2 And the other 99.5%

Speaker 2 are coming from elsewhere, right? India, Indonesia, you name it.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 it's kind of counterintuitive for me that

Speaker 2 the entire organization is impacted because we have this ongoing investigation here in France, particularly given the fact that it's going

Speaker 2 in a pace that only requires me to be here once like

Speaker 2 in several months.

Speaker 2 So I do think that the current restriction is

Speaker 2 very strange and very unnecessary. And I hope it will be lifted later this year.

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Speaker 2 When it's cravenient. Okay.

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Speaker 2 And off. Well, it's C, because, first of all, this investigation can't last forever.
It can probably last for another several months or a year, and then it will have to either go on trial or

Speaker 4 be concluded. You could be criminally charged for this?

Speaker 2 Everything is possible. Like, you can't rule out.

Speaker 4 I guess if they'd arrest you at the airport, they'd do anything, right?

Speaker 2 That's what

Speaker 2 bothered me when I was in police custody for these four days.

Speaker 2 Like, first thing, something like this should have never happened because I assumed there were certain thorough procedures to verify a lot of

Speaker 2 alleged facts before taking a decision such as this. Like you can't start something like this based on a media article that Telegram

Speaker 2 allegedly is non-cooperative or that Telegram supposedly has worse content moderation. than other platforms.
Both these facts turned out to be completely false.

Speaker 2 You have to be really thorough and examine things before making this decision, because the decisions such as this are not only harmful for my relatives or for my company or for me personally, decisions such as this, I think, impact France as a whole.

Speaker 2 And I'm French, I'm a French citizen, so I worry about that as well.

Speaker 2 really

Speaker 2 think that out of all social media platforms, Telugu was probably the most friendly

Speaker 2 potential partner for France. And every time

Speaker 2 anyone from the French government, from the French authorities, reached out to me, I did my best to help. I helped.

Speaker 2 So this, for me, looked almost like friendly fire.

Speaker 2 They're trying to attack their own ally. in a way.

Speaker 2 And I was so surprised that this would happen

Speaker 2 because the collateral damage, not just for me and my company, but for the image of France, is quite significant.

Speaker 2 And I talked to many of my friends, the CEO of big tech companies, and they were very concerned and asked me, can I still come to France?

Speaker 2 Is it still safe to be in France?

Speaker 2 People were worried. And the CEOs of the smaller companies, they don't have a billion users.
I even more worried.

Speaker 2 They say, look, they did this to you and you're very well known and the company of your profile is, you know,

Speaker 2 should be treated

Speaker 2 in certain different way. So, and I am running a small startup, a friend of mine would say, I'm scared to come.

Speaker 2 And, you know, this trend continues. So I heard.

Speaker 4 But the sad thing is like, nobody's afraid to go to Uzbekistan, actually.

Speaker 2 I'm not endorsing Uzbekistan.

Speaker 4 I've never been there, but I've never met anyone who's like, I'm too afraid to go to Uzbekistan.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I was there last summer. It was great.

Speaker 2 I didn't even know that. But that's the point.
I mean,

Speaker 4 right?

Speaker 4 These countries that you grew up thinking are primitive or don't have functioning legal systems or, you know, whose laws are really just a function of the whim of the monarch or whatever, they turn out to be kind of fine with

Speaker 4 what you do or what I do or what any normal person who believes in human rights does, but it's like France or Great Britain.

Speaker 4 Like, didn't you get citizenship here thinking this was a safe haven as someone who was, in some sense, kind of a refugee from his own country, a refugee of principle?

Speaker 4 Like, I don't want to share this with the government, I'm leaving.

Speaker 4 Didn't you choose this country for citizenship because you thought that it was a place that was committed to human rights?

Speaker 2 Well, the slogan of France is

Speaker 2 liberty, fraternity, egality, right? So equality. So

Speaker 2 it's something that I strongly believe in. And it's certainly something that

Speaker 2 France stands for in my uh in my opinion and for pretty much everybody who was born in the Soviet Union like I was

Speaker 2 Western Europe

Speaker 2 is considered to be this place where freedoms and human rights are respected

Speaker 2 and and

Speaker 2 that's why it was such a shock

Speaker 2 for me back there in the police custody. Interestingly, the interpreter that we had during these four days in police custody also emigrated from the Soviet Union.

Speaker 2 She was translating English to French and back.

Speaker 2 And after being present there for two days,

Speaker 2 she

Speaker 2 said during a break with all the policemen and

Speaker 2 clerks and everybody present there.

Speaker 2 And she said, I left the Soviet Union

Speaker 2 hoping I would be in a country with freedoms.

Speaker 2 And it seems now that the Soviet Union has caught up with me.

Speaker 2 And I've what, so I was very surprised to hear her say that, because for me, France is not there yet. France is still the country that respects human rights and freedoms.

Speaker 2 However, I understood, I later understood why she was so sensitive to this, because she actually experienced experienced what life is like in an environment where you don't have freedom of speech and you don't have a free market economy and that's why every perceived change for

Speaker 2 uh in this direction where freedoms are less respected

Speaker 2 is taking very is making them very very concerned people from the soviet union and i myself i remember my life i was a small kid in the soviet union but I remember having only three TV channels and all these three TV channels show the same TV program

Speaker 2 about the Communist Party.

Speaker 2 I remember having two kinds of ice cream in the shops across the city and across the country and no more.

Speaker 2 And then when I was brought to Italy as a five-year-old kid, And I could see, okay, actually, I could have 100 TV channels, and some of them even show Disney cartoons and Japanese anime.

Speaker 2 That's great. I can go to a shop downstairs and they have 200 different kinds of ice cream.
That's much better than I experienced in the Soviet Union. And I thought, maybe these things,

Speaker 2 afterwards I realized that these systems called the free market economy and respect to freedom of speech and basic human rights.

Speaker 2 They're actually very good concepts because they make your life abundant. But the problem is I remember this

Speaker 2 life in the absence of these things. Other people from the Soviet Union, probably from Cuba, from other countries like that, experienced that.

Speaker 2 But people who were born and grew up here, for example, in France, have not necessarily had this experience. They take freedoms for granted.
They think that

Speaker 2 things are going to be fine because we're a free country and what can possibly go wrong.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, the history knows many examples when free societies gradually degraded into societies without freedoms.

Speaker 2 And one good example was last month with this anti-encryption law I told you before about, because people were completely ignorant here in France. The public was completely ignorant.

Speaker 4 So no encryption means no privacy.

Speaker 2 Yes. Correct.
It means everybody's vulnerable. Like everybody's messages can leak,

Speaker 2 it's mind-boggling. And of course, every time something like this is proposed,

Speaker 2 very

Speaker 2 logically sounding justifications are used.

Speaker 4 To protect the children.

Speaker 2 To protect the children, to fight crime, to

Speaker 2 you know.

Speaker 4 Neither of which they bother doing, by the way.

Speaker 2 They don't care about children. And they don't stop crime.

Speaker 2 Or in the Soviet Union, they would say, like in Maoist China, in other places, they would say, oh, our geopolitical rival is trying to stir chaos in our country. So we have to limit this.

Speaker 4 It's Qatar doing it. It's Russia.

Speaker 2 It's Qatar. So, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 4 But it's always some Trotskyite wreckers. It's some unseen force from a foreign land trying to wreck our project.
So we need to oppress you to keep you safe.

Speaker 2 Yes. But it's not easy because now in the European Union, you have all these laws.
that basically say you have to remove anything. It's actually part of the Digital Services Act.

Speaker 2 You have to remove anything one of the European countries demands you remove for the

Speaker 2 entirety of the European Union. So if you have, for example, Romania or Estonia or any other of these

Speaker 2 very highly respected countries demanding that you remove like most of Telegram channels for whatever reason. You have to remove them.
Then you can appeal.

Speaker 2 Well, it will take you probably several years,

Speaker 2 but you have to remove them within like a very short time frame.

Speaker 2 Otherwise, you'll be facing

Speaker 2 fines, bans, and so on. How is that not the Warsaw Pact? I mean, how is that not Soviet?

Speaker 4 If you criticize the people in charge, we shut you down. That's what they're saying.

Speaker 2 Interesting, you would say that.

Speaker 2 It was in 2009, 2008, actually,

Speaker 2 I made my first

Speaker 2 trip to Latvia on a train from St. Petersburg and

Speaker 2 something was wrong with my visa so I had to get off in the border town in Latvia. But I had this long discussion with a border police officer.
Well I seem to like border policemen.

Speaker 2 So border police officer in Latvia and I started to discuss his life in Latvia after Latvia was accepted in the EU. And he told me this interesting thing.

Speaker 2 He said, you know, we hated being in the Soviet Union,

Speaker 2 but now that we are in the EU, we realize we are in a very similar organization. Of course.
We're in the Soviet Union again.

Speaker 4 Unelected foreigners are still making the key decisions, and you don't get to talk.

Speaker 2 So it's very funny you would compare this to systems. Of course, they're very different.
But still.

Speaker 4 But fundamentally, if you're not allowed to criticize the people in charge, you live in a tyranny. I mean, what's the other definition of it?

Speaker 4 I have to be able to say to the person making the decisions, I don't like that decision, and here's why I have to be able to say it in public.

Speaker 4 And I've always felt that the problem that you have, as the person who owns and runs Telegram, is that you make it easy for people to come together online. You have the channels.

Speaker 4 And that is, I don't know if you thought this through and you're an engineer when you when you built it.

Speaker 4 But that is potentially a massive threat to governments because it's not simply communicating one-on-one.

Speaker 4 People can create their own channels, just like a TV channel, and reach a lot of like-minded people, and they could potentially organize.

Speaker 2 Organize.

Speaker 2 That's true. But one thing that makes Telegram different, we don't promote these channels.

Speaker 2 So everything that you have on Telegram is something that you have to deliberately search for and subscribe for. Yes.

Speaker 2 So unlike some other apps that constantly recommend you content and content sources, we don't do that.

Speaker 2 You open Telegram, it's just an empty list of chats if you don't have any friend there and if you're not subscribed to any channel. You have to deliberately find one.

Speaker 2 So I think we're a completely neutral platform. We allow everybody to express their voice within the

Speaker 2 rules of the

Speaker 2 common sense. And then everybody can decide which point of view makes more sense to them and

Speaker 2 see if, for example, the government is right or the opposition is right. Right.

Speaker 4 That's called freedom.

Speaker 2 That's called freedom. Unfortunately, it's something that, surprisingly,

Speaker 2 faces a lot of backlash.

Speaker 4 May I ask you a question about encryption? So

Speaker 4 the advances in computing power, well, they're calling it quantum computing, right?

Speaker 4 So they're just so exponential that it's hard even to understand for the non-engineer brain like mine, but they're profound.

Speaker 4 The speed at which processing is now occurring, does that eliminate, like what is the technology, what is the technological state of play? Does that eliminate encryption?

Speaker 4 Encryption will have to change, correct?

Speaker 2 The encryption has to change, and

Speaker 2 there has been made progress in

Speaker 2 encryption, which is like quantum secure. So it's a constant

Speaker 2 evolution. So

Speaker 2 the tools to decrypt become stronger and then the tools to encrypt become stronger.

Speaker 4 That makes sense. Are you confident that encryption, that secure encryption will still exist as a technological matter with the rise of the super fast quantum computing?

Speaker 2 It's very hard to be confident in anything because

Speaker 2 first of all, we have to rely on the computing power of our devices to decrypt things. Of course, there are very sophisticated algorithms in place that

Speaker 2 make it so that you don't have to have the same level of computing power on your device as in a data center. I was about to say you have to bring a data center with you.
Yeah, exactly. So

Speaker 2 it's not exactly like... Build a nuclear power plant, buy 100 acres.
You don't have to.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 you know, it continues. So the

Speaker 2 particular state actors have almost infinite computing power at their disposal and they have certain technologies at their disposal that may they may not be uh telling everybody about so they might not be telling people about it

Speaker 2 so it's very possible that what you're saying will become reality or is already reality who knows

Speaker 4 so um so that kind of is one of the and i don't you know i know you have well you're legally boundest here in France, so you're under some kind of

Speaker 4 state control. So, and I know your life is complicated because it's, I don't want to push you to say things that get you in trouble, but

Speaker 4 it does feel like a determined government can spy in anybody it wants to. That's the way it feels to me.
Do you think that's true?

Speaker 2 Well, I think the biggest risk for personal privacy is

Speaker 2 the ability of any state actor to penetrate the device of the person, the mobile device, for example, because there are so-called zero-day vulnerabilities on iOS or Android phones, for example, that the governments sometimes know about and the secret agencies know about and they can exploit them.

Speaker 2 But everybody else doesn't know and they can't defend

Speaker 2 themselves from them. So if you became a target of a government, it's really likely that they would install this Trojan, so-called Trojan called Pegasus on your device.

Speaker 2 And I was one of these people eight years ago that had Pegasus installed on their phones, according to the leaked reports.

Speaker 4 Been there.

Speaker 4 Is there any way, and I think a lot of people are there without knowing it, and I know that. Is there any way to know if your phone has

Speaker 4 been compromised? If what you're looking at and typing is being read by somebody else? Is there any way to know for certain?

Speaker 2 For certain, probably no,

Speaker 2 but there are ways to check that and see if known vulnerabilities have been

Speaker 2 exploited on your phone. And I know there are some organizations that can help you with that.

Speaker 4 Where's your phone? Did you leave it out?

Speaker 2 I don't use a phone. I haven't used the phone

Speaker 2 for a year almost.

Speaker 2 Oh, France took it. Well, France took it, but even before it took it, I wasn't using my phone.
I didn't have a SIM card in the phone.

Speaker 2 I just use it to test test Telegram, the app, because we have constant product updates. I have to test it at least twice a week.
But

Speaker 2 I'm not a user of a phone.

Speaker 4 So I just want to say, again, you're an engineer, too. I mean, you're not like a marketing guy.
You're like a build-the-app guy. So you understand the technology.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 4 Because you built it.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 4 So you're coming from a highly informed perspective when you make technology choices. Is that fair?

Speaker 2 You could say so. Yeah.

Speaker 4 One of the most informed probably in the world. And you don't have a phone.
What is that? Like, why don't you have a phone?

Speaker 2 Well, I don't use phone regularly, right? I probably own a phone. But I don't use phone.
I don't carry a phone with me because I find it extremely distracting. I find it also

Speaker 2 potentially

Speaker 2 harming my privacy.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 I also just I don't think it's a necessary device for me to have. When I want to focus on something, I would rather use my laptop or my iPad

Speaker 2 and put together some noise

Speaker 2 or some

Speaker 2 interact with my team, right? So I wouldn't want to just open my phone and disappear there consuming short form content. And that's why I don't use a phone.

Speaker 4 I'm

Speaker 4 trying to extract this from you for one simple reason, which is I think that when you come across someone who knows an immense amount about technology, really understands the technology, it's interesting to know his perspective on technology.

Speaker 4 Like with everything you know, you don't use a phone. So I just think, you know, people can draw their own conclusions from that.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 4 what do you, you saw Ross Albrecht? Albrecht got.

Speaker 2 The guy who was pardoned, yes. Yeah.

Speaker 4 Silk Road.

Speaker 4 So he ran Silk Road, and I'm hardly an expert on this. I was very pleased when he got pardoned.

Speaker 4 But it seemed like no one accused him of selling drugs, by the way. You know, you would never know that from the New York Times, but he was not like dealing drugs on playgrounds or anything like that.

Speaker 4 He had a site

Speaker 4 that made commerce possible outside the control of government. And there apparently were bad people doing bad things on it.

Speaker 4 Also, a lot of good people doing good things on it, but it was none of it was controlled by the government. And he got life in prison for that.
That's my takeaway.

Speaker 4 And

Speaker 4 so maybe there will all my

Speaker 4 sort of conclusion from this is as long as people like you create technology that makes it harder for government to control people, you will be a target of government action.

Speaker 2 Well, first of all, I wouldn't necessarily compare Telegram with Silk Row.

Speaker 4 And I'm not. And I didn't mean to.

Speaker 4 But the idea that

Speaker 4 the idea that they need to control everything that is happening online. And if they can't, they're going to punish you.
That does seem like a real fact.

Speaker 2 I think everybody's trying to

Speaker 2 reach their goals and be more efficient in what they do. For example, you ask any minister of interior, any head of police, and they'll tell you, oh, encryption is a big problem.

Speaker 2 If it weren't for encryption, we would solve all crime.

Speaker 2 They don't see it two steps or three steps ahead. Yes.

Speaker 2 And it's not necessarily like some huge conspiracy where evil governments want to take more and more control, although that may be the case. I'm not knowledgeable on that subject.

Speaker 2 It seems to me more like everybody is trying to solve the problems that they see using the tools that they have at their disposal, even if it negatively impacts other areas

Speaker 2 of our lives.

Speaker 4 You're a very generous man, I must say. Last question, and thank you for doing this.

Speaker 4 how long are you going to be in France and once you leave France will you be coming back to France

Speaker 2 I don't know yet

Speaker 2 when these restrictions will be lifted I hope later this year I will be able to travel to my home country which is Dubai freely I

Speaker 2 I will probably come back to France because it's a great place

Speaker 2 to

Speaker 2 spend time in.

Speaker 2 Of course,

Speaker 2 I had a lot of I have spent a lot of time in France now,

Speaker 2 eight months.

Speaker 2 So

Speaker 4 kind of a full immersion program. How's your French?

Speaker 2 It's actually good. I was very good when I passed my French exam to receive the passport.

Speaker 2 It got 97 points out of 100. But I didn't practice my French much.
Most of my friends are Americans,

Speaker 2 but even here in Paris.

Speaker 2 And my my French friends speak perfect English, so I didn't get a chance to practice.

Speaker 4 But now you've had that chance?

Speaker 2 No, because they speak English with me. It's changed.
Like before, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, it was difficult not to speak French in France. Now, for better or worse, you can get by using English.

Speaker 2 I'm trying to use my French, but I don't sound as I sound even less intelligent in French than in English. So people switch back to English with me.

Speaker 4 But you don't anticipate having to stay for the next 20 years or anything here.

Speaker 2 I would be very surprised if that happened, because you see, I'm traveling to Dubai. I'm coming back.
It's just obvious that I'm not

Speaker 2 somebody who would try to escape forever.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 2 this investigation has to be concluded

Speaker 2 one way or the other. Of course, then if it goes to trial, if that happens, it can take another several years.
But then again, it would be completely

Speaker 2 crazy, I would say, if I would have to move to France and live here permanently for the whole duration of this process.

Speaker 2 I would say that

Speaker 2 most likely

Speaker 2 I expect that I would be able to travel again later this year. year.

Speaker 4 Well, we're certainly rooting for you.

Speaker 2 Pablo, thank you very much. Thank you so much.

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