TF1 and BFM television stations, citing anonymous sources, reported that Pavel Durov, the billionaire founder and CEO of messaging app Telegram, was arrested on Saturday evening at Bourget airport outside Paris.
Telegram is particularly influential in Russia, Ukraine and former Soviet republics and is one of the major social media platforms after Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok and WeChat, aiming to reach 1 billion users next year.
Dubai-based Telegram was founded by Russia-born Durov, who left Russia and sold his social media platform, VK, in 2014 after it refused to comply with government demands to shut down opposition communities on the platform.
TF1 reported on its website that Durov was traveling on a private jet and that an arrest warrant had been issued in France as part of a preliminary police investigation.
Both TF1 and BFM said the investigation was focused on a lack of moderators at Telegram, a situation that police believe could allow criminal activity to continue unchecked on the messaging app.
Telegram did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, while the French interior ministry and police had no comment.
Apps became popular during wartime
Since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Telegram has become a primary source of unfiltered, sometimes graphic and misleading content from both sides about the war and the politics surrounding the conflict.
The app has become the preferred method of communication for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his government, the Kremlin and Russian government also use it to distribute news, and it's one of the few places Russian citizens can access news about the war.
TF1 reported that Durov was travelling from Azerbaijan and was arrested at around 6pm GMT.
Durov, whose fortune is estimated by Forbes magazine at $15.5 billion, said the app, which now has 900 million active users, should remain a “neutral platform” rather than a “geopolitical actor” despite pressure from some governments.
The Russian embassy in France told Russian state news agency TASS that it had not heard from Durov's team after news of the arrest was published but was taking “immediate” steps to clarify the situation.
Bloggers encourage French embassy protest
Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia's representative to international organizations in Vienna, and several other Russian politicians were quick to accuse France of acting as a dictatorship.
“Some naive people [a] A more or less visible role [the] “It is not safe to visit countries that are moving towards more totalitarian societies in the international information space,” Ulyanov wrote on Twitter.
Several Russian bloggers called for protests at French embassies around the world at midday on Sunday.