Last month, the French Senate nearly approved a bill requiring messaging services to implement a "backdoor" for police access to end-to-end encrypted messages. Fortunately, the National Assembly rejected this initiative, marking a victory for digital privacy advocates in the country.

Durov expressed gratitude to lawmakers for abandoning the "law that could strip French citizens of their privacy rights." He emphasized that such "backdoors" could be exploited not only by law enforcement but also by criminals, threatening the security of private communications.

Proponents of the bill argued it would aid in combating organized crime; however, Durov doubts its effectiveness, pointing out that criminals would simply switch to lesser-known platforms.

Telegram, used by over 700 million people worldwide, has maintained a strict no "backdoor" policy for 12 years. Durov stated that the company would rather exit the market than compromise human rights.

He also noted that Telegram complies with EU laws by only disclosing IP addresses and phone numbers of suspects upon legal requests, but never the content of messages. "We have never shared a single byte of private messages," Durov asserted.

Despite the recent legislative victory, Durov warned that the fight for encryption is far from over. In March, the European Commission proposed a similar initiative for all of the EU.

While Durov positions Telegram as an end-to-end encrypted messaging service, he faces criticism regarding its security level. For instance, the founder of Signal claimed that Facebook Messenger offers better privacy protection than Telegram, as end-to-end encryption is only activated in "secret chats."