There's a lot of "he said she said" around just how cooperative Pavel Durov was with France's inquiries into his platform, but it's wild to me they chose to arrest him for criminal charges instead of simply banning or restricting Telegram.

Interesting times when France makes both Russia and Iran look gracious by comparison. Here's part of Durov's post:

Sometimes we can’t agree with a country’s regulator on the right balance between privacy and security. In those cases, we are ready to leave that country. We've done it many times. When Russia demanded we hand over “encryption keys” to enable surveillance, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Russia. When Iran demanded we block channels of peaceful protesters, we refused — and Telegram got banned in Iran. We are prepared to leave markets that aren’t compatible with our principles, because we are not doing this for money.