Pod Insights The Tucker Carlson Show Pavel Durov Speaks Out for the First Time Since His Politically-Motivated Arrest in France About this episode Telegram founder Pavel Durov has effectively been under house arrest in France since he was arrested there ten months ago. For the first time, he explains why.
(00:00) Being Arrested in France
(10:50) France’s Attempt to Humiliate and Tarnish Durov
(17:21) How Telegram Makes Money
(22:06) Did Anyone Defend Durov?
(31:56) Europe’s Mission to Make Privacy Illegal
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Transcript 11,355 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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0:29 Tucker Carlson? Well, I'm glad you're still here.
0:32 Speaker 02 I'm also glad I'm still here.
0:33 Tucker Carlson? Yes, 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 "Pablo D'Arb disappears in France, arrested." And then, you know, no one heard from you for several days. It was, it was kind of, 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. What, like, what happened that day? Just like, the events of the day, let's start there. August last year.
1:04 Speaker 02 August last year, I arrived to Paris, and I'm greeted in the airport by--
1:10 Tucker Carlson? What were you doing here?
1:11 Speaker 02 I just, for tourist purposes. I was just hanging around for a couple of days, and then I was supposed to go to Finland after. And I wasn't supposed to stay. There was no business meeting of any kind. And I was greeted by policemen. They asked me certain questions, asked me to follow them.
1:32 Tucker Carlson? Were you confused? Like, why are policemen meeting me at the airport?
1:34 Speaker 02 Definitely. At first, I thought there may be some additional security checks because of the Olympics, of the Paralympics, something's going on. Julia, my girlfriend, she was worried. She was asking me, "Is it all right?" I said, "It's all right. It's France, it's fine." Of course. And, and then they read me a list of charges, like, I don't know, 16 charges? All kinds of crimes. I was very confused at first because, like, I have nothing to do with crime. I've never been convicted. I have, you know, we're a company that is trying to comply with the, with the best standards. And so at that moment, I realized that it's not something I did.
2:17 Speaker 02 It's something other people did using the app I created Telegram, which is used by a billion people. So probably some people.
2:25 Tucker Carlson? Do you know all of them or?
2:26 Speaker 02 Unfortunately not.
2:27 Tucker Carlson? Okay.
2:28 Speaker 02 Unfortunately. I try my best to meet more, but uh, so yeah. And then I was uh, put into a car and uh, with a small motorcade, police cars with sirens and uh, which is funny because in the previous countries that I visited, I also was accompanied by motorcades because I was visiting the heads of states there. Uh, and here in France, there was certain consistencies. So I was greeted in the same way, so to say.
2:59 Tucker Carlson? Were you like texting?
3:01 Speaker 02 I couldn't because they took my phone and I wasn't allowed.
3:04 Tucker Carlson? Like they immediately took your phone?
3:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, I wasn't allowed to contact anyone except for my assistant, who I asked to find me some lawyers and reach out to certain friends that I have and try to understand what was going on. And then I spent four days in police custody of the building in south of Paris that uh, that is uh, 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.
3:41 Tucker Carlson? But you spent four days with no contact, no phone?
3:44 Speaker 02 Yes.
3:45 Tucker Carlson? In what kind of accommodations?
3:47 Speaker 02 Was a seven, seven square meter room or seventy square feet room. Uh, no windows, concrete block.
3:59 Speaker 02 A bed this narrow, uh, no linen, no pillow, a mattress this thin, like yoga mat this thin, uh, maybe one centimeter, half inch. Hmm, and that's it. And constantly uh, blinking light, which was a bit annoying.
4:16 Tucker Carlson? Locked door?
4:18 Speaker 02 There's, yeah, the door was very securely locked, I must say.
4:21 Tucker Carlson? So you're in a, you're in a cell?
4:23 Speaker 02 Yes, it was a solitary cell, so to say. There were no other people there.
4:28 Tucker Carlson? So they put you in solitary confinement?
4:30 Speaker 02 You could say that, yes.
4:31 Tucker Carlson? Well, that sounds like that's what it is.
4:32 Speaker 02 Well, it wasn't a prison or jail, it wasn't...
4:35 Tucker Carlson? Well, if there's a locked door, no pillow...
4:38 Speaker 02 But legally speaking, it wasn't.
4:39 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, legally speaking, so legally speaking, 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?
4:51 Speaker 02 So I understood that they were worried about the alleged
4:58 Speaker 02 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. So I was even more confused. And 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, right? It's defined by the Digital Services Act and it's there. You can Google the process, you can read the privacy policy of Telegram. It's easily accessible on the website. So why didn't you do it?"
5:40 Speaker 02 And they didn't answer, but thanks God, they started to do it. And then they started to receive responses, helping them to identify criminal suspects, meaning we would disclose IP address and phone number of people who were suspects in criminal investigations when we received court orders signed by a judge.
6:03 Tucker Carlson? Right.
6:04 Speaker 02 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. We had a company in Belgium processing these requests. Other countries have successfully been using this process.
6:23 Tucker Carlson? Right.
6:23 Speaker 02 But somehow the French have ignored it completely. And this is why, you know, I was very surprised. They say, why haven't you been doing this? Why, but this is the process.
6:33 Tucker Carlson? And to be clear, I mean, I think this is like standard for social media companies. 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. And the court order says, you know, we have reason, this person's a criminal, can we have the IP address? I think they all comply with that, correct?
6:51 Speaker 02 Yes. Well, it's the DSA law. If you don't comply with it, you can be fined, you can be banned. Well, it's a question of 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. It has nothing to do with, for example, private messages of a person or other kinds of activity, which is much more protected, much more private. Even if we wanted to, we wouldn't be able to disclose this information.
7:26 Tucker Carlson? Right.
7:26 Speaker 02 But it's not required by the law.
7:28 Tucker Carlson? Yes, but what you're describing is like the state of play across Europe anyway for all the companies.
7:34 Speaker 02 Exactly.
7:34 Tucker Carlson? Okay. So, but 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. Were you confused, like, were you worried?
7:50 Speaker 02 It was very hard to understand.
7:51 Tucker Carlson? 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 jail, but wouldn't let me out and lock the door for four days without being able to contact my family. I'd be concerned. Were you concerned?
8:06 Speaker 02 That was very surprising. I was shocked.
8:09 Tucker Carlson? You're very diplomatic.
8:12 Speaker 02 You know, at first I thought there was some mistake. They got the wrong guy.
8:18 Tucker Carlson? Yeah.
8:18 Speaker 02 I thought like, 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? Then I realized it's, it's serious because they're not letting me out. They keep.
8:38 Speaker 02 Keep me there in this.
8:43 Tucker Carlson? 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, it's one of the biggest social media companies in the world. And so there's a process, so if they think that Telegram is doing something wrong, they send letters to your general counsel, or maybe get your phone number, which I'm sure they could pretty easily get, 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 on grounds like this.
9:15 Speaker 02 You're very right, it never happened before.
9:17 Tucker Carlson? It's like completely outrageous.
9:20 Speaker 02 It's unprecedented, right? Never happened. So it's something that I think was very unnecessary, because on top of what you just described, I'm also a French citizen. So in the.
9:33 Tucker Carlson? Now, how did you wind up, because you're not from France originally?
9:37 Speaker 02 Yeah, I'm not from France originally, but I have certain ties to France, and I was awarded, so to say, this citizenship for using a specific process, which took several years, but I didn't cut any corners, like I had to pass the French exam test, like if I had to do certain things that you'd normally do.
9:55 Tucker Carlson? Because you wanted to be a French citizen.
9:58 Speaker 02 I wanted, I like, I love the country, it's a great country, it's a great culture. Of course, these events are alarming, and that's why I think it makes sense to speak about them. And 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, like he's there or she's there. And on top of that, the consulate of France is located in the same building as the Telegram office in Dubai, so.
10:39 Tucker Carlson? The same building?
10:40 Speaker 02 The same building, like you remember.
10:42 Tucker Carlson? I've been to the building, it's not a huge building, by the way.
10:44 Speaker 02 Not really, and it's just two floors below.
10:49 Tucker Carlson? You're two floors from the French consulate?
10:51 Speaker 02 We're two floors from the French consulate. And I was a frequent visitor to the consulate. And whenever 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. I was happy just to 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, if you think about it.
11:28 Tucker Carlson? Well, obviously, 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 by yourself, because you couldn't.
11:41 Speaker 02 I couldn't.
11:41 Tucker Carlson? But the rest of us were. And they announced, "We've arrested Paula Durov, and arms sales, or drug sales, or kiddie porn, or, I mean, who knows, like horrible..." It's like, what? So they were trying to terrify you and humiliate you, obviously.
11:59 Speaker 02 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. 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.
12:21 Tucker Carlson? Have you read the... 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?
12:29 Speaker 02 Well, when I was in police custody, I heard from one of the policemen. He told me, "Every newspaper in the world is covering this, and is mentioning you." And I said, "What's going on?" He said, "Well, a lot of people are supportive." But I asked him, "What do newspapers write about this case?" And he told me, "Everything but truth." And I freaked out at that moment, like, "Everything but truth, seriously?" And when I went...
13:04 Speaker 02 This four days ended and I was.
13:07 Tucker Carlson? Can I just ask, like, what was your family doing? And you've got children and parents and like, what were?
13:13 Speaker 02 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, she's very elderly. She was very worried, as I learned after, what's going on with my kids. And this is something that gets to you and.
13:35 Tucker Carlson? And you couldn't contact them?
13:36 Speaker 02 No, there's no way because you don't have access to any device or you can't even read.
13:42 Tucker Carlson? What did they think was going on?
13:45 Speaker 02 They were very surprised and very confused and very worried.
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18:17 Tucker Carlson? Just for perspective, those who don't know your story, I 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. You're Russian, as people can probably hear in your voice and
18:30 Tucker Carlson? sound like you're 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. You left your own country and moved, well, moved around and but wound up in Dubai in France. Were you ever arrested by Putin?
18:49 Speaker 02 No.
18:50 Tucker Carlson? No. Okay. Just to put a finer point on this, I mean, I'm not, you know, defending Putin, but you were arrested by the French government in the Free West. Did that, did you ever kind of see the irony there?
19:03 Speaker 02 That was the most unexpected place to get arrested for me because before in this trip, I visited several countries. Some of these countries are considered in the West to be autocratic or authoritarian.
19:18 Speaker 02 But I had, and Telegram is very, very popular in these countries I visited before coming to Paris. And I had zero issues whatsoever, despite the fact that Telegram does zero censorship in terms of political speech. And Telegram provides 100% privacy and confidentiality to its users in all these places.
19:45 Tucker Carlson? So you do not extract personal information from your users?
19:49 Speaker 02 Unlike our company, yes. We never do that.
19:51 Tucker Carlson? Okay. But other companies, I mean, Facebook is, I mean, Meta is very rich because they extract that personal data, right?
19:58 Speaker 02 That's the business model, yes.
20:00 Tucker Carlson? That's right, I'm not attacking them. Sorry, I am attacking them. But that's what they do, and you don't do that.
20:05 Speaker 02 Yes, we don't have to do that. We 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, without having to rely on methods like this, when you have to extract personal data and then use it for targeting ads, for example. We have very successful subscription, paid subscription service on Telegram.
20:46 Speaker 02 We have, you know, we monetize in ways that are consistent with our values.
20:51 Tucker Carlson? That are voluntary. I mean, your users have to sign up for the things that make you money. You're not just stealing their data from them.
20:59 Speaker 02 Exactly. And the service is free, and we just crossed 1 billion monthly user threshold or milestone.
21:10 Tucker Carlson? Congratulations.
21:11 Speaker 02 Thank you. So it's growing very fast, and we are very happy with what we do. 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. But most of the features that you use 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 know in every modern messaging app. Like the way you respond to messages, the way you share links,
21:54 Speaker 02 the way you share documents, 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, one of which is larger than Telegram and others are smaller. But still, we are proud.
22:15 Tucker Carlson? I'm not gonna guess. The green one.
22:17 Speaker 02 Yes, but we are proud that we've been able to shape what the industry is like today and define how billions of people communicate.
22:28 Tucker Carlson? 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. It's like, it's crazy. I mean, if Mark Zuckerberg or Elon got grabbed, you know, at the private part of Deportif Airport, you'd be like, stop them, like, what? The world is ending. But they grabbed you and people like, oh, he's got a Russian last name. It's fine. I'm sure there's a good reason.
22:54 Speaker 02 Wow. I hope it had nothing to do with my ethnicity, because that would be...
23:01 Tucker Carlson? Of course it did. Are you joking?
23:03 Speaker 02 That would be very alarming, because...
23:05 Tucker Carlson? You got run out of Russia, by the way. I just want to say that again. You got run out, you'd probably still be living there if you hadn't had to leave. So it's clearly you didn't participate in whatever they're mad about in Russia. You're gone.
23:15 Speaker 02 Yeah, but it still can make you an easier target.
23:18 Tucker Carlson? I'm aware of that.
23:19 Speaker 02 Because people don't know my story, right? People, not everybody watched our last interview and not everybody had...
23:26 Tucker Carlson? But where was the out? 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... Privacy should play a role in your thinking about a business. And that's my view, and you agree. Most companies don't agree. So I'm on your side. But where were all the civil libertarians jumping to your defense? Like, can you just grab someone at the airport? Because, well, because who knows why? Can you just do that? Put him in jail for four days? Take his phone? Like, where were your defenders?
23:58 Speaker 02 Well, to be fair, some people did.
24:02 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, some did.
24:03 Speaker 02 Speak up 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.
24:15 Tucker Carlson? Yes.
24:15 Speaker 02 So it was a very, very large movement.
24:20 Tucker Carlson? But I'm thinking more like the United Nations, you know, human rights watchdogs. Like, where are they? If this happened in North Korea, which, you know, I don't know. It hasn't, so. But if it happened there, it would be like, oh, my gosh, it's Stalinism. But it happens in France. You're like, I'm sure there's a good reason.
24:39 Speaker 02 That's, you know, that's what makes the situation so complicated. Because we have to look at the instances such as this one, regardless of which jurisdiction I was born in, which jurisdiction is conducting this investigation. It should be completely unbiased, right? And so it's, it's very concerning.
25:10 Tucker Carlson? Did they ask you questions about Russia during your four days of detainment?
25:15 Speaker 02 I think so, but it wasn't the focus of their questioning. The most questions were about the way Telegram operates, as if it's some kind of mystery. You know, we are a big company. We are audited by a big four auditing firm. We work with the biggest financial institutions. So we're a big company. We spend millions of dollars every quarter on legal compliance. 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.
26:00 Speaker 02 Get detained in Paris and learned that Telegram did something wrong or didn't process some requests. And then, when I learned more about it, I realized that we did actually nothing wrong, because the law is very clear in describing the process that should be followed in order for this request to be processed, and it wasn't followed.
26:23 Tucker Carlson? And that's something that French prosecutors could have found out in about six minutes, obviously.
26:30 Speaker 02 That's the irony of it. It was like you could Google Telegram, police contact Telegram, EU cooperation, whatever, and it would be instantly visible online for anybody who has access to Google. For some reason, it wasn't used by...
26:46 Tucker Carlson? Right, 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?
26:53 Speaker 02 They always, I think they made some exception in relation to food for me, so it was fine. I was fine. It was pretty good. I, you know, I don't eat meat, I don't eat fast food, so I was good with 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.
27:20 Tucker Carlson? Did you join a gang?
27:21 Speaker 02 No, I was alone there.
27:23 Tucker Carlson? Alone. You did push-ups in your cell. 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.
27:36 Speaker 02 I'm still in France.
27:38 Tucker Carlson? Many, many months later.
27:39 Speaker 02 Eight, almost eight months.
27:41 Tucker Carlson? Eight months later, you're still in France. Why are you still here?
27:46 Speaker 02 So, there is this limitation on my travel, 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... Been 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 a very, very restricted, controlled process still.
28:23 Tucker Carlson? 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 gonna run away?
28:33 Speaker 02 Well, that's exactly my, the source of my misunderstanding and my confusion here. So I'm not running anywhere. And, you know, I've been to Dubai, came back. 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 the other like three or four months, I am just having to be here for reasons that are very hard for me to understand.
29:05 Tucker Carlson? What's their argument? I mean, I'm just confused. So 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. You were not involved in kiddie porn, drug sales, organized crime, arms. I can't even remember, but like the worst crimes in the world. No one is actually claiming you were involved in those crimes, correct?
29:28 Speaker 02 Correct.
29:29 Tucker Carlson? Okay. 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?
29:40 Speaker 02 Correct.
29:42 Tucker Carlson? It'd be like saying to Donald Trump, there are 350 million people in America, you know, one-third than of users you have, and some of them are using kiddie porn or selling drugs or, you know, organized crime, and we're putting you in jail for it. I mean, that's like, it's insane. So why are you still here? Like, what is the claim against you?
30:01 Speaker 02 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 request, and that's why you're complicit." But first of all, it's not true that we didn't respond to legally binding legal requests. And secondly, it's a very extensive interpretation of complicity, even for the French legal judicial system. 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
30:45 Speaker 02 and were targeted specifically at criminals. They were nothing like that. They didn't even have these companies, they didn't even have bank accounts. It was a different profile. They were not audited by Big Four organization. But these companies have been persecuted in France before, and their founders, I understand, were accused of running a platform that is created for the purpose to facilitate crime. It's pretty much obvious that Telegram is not such a company, right?
31:26 Speaker 02 So it has a billion users, every eighth person on the planet is a user of Telegram, a regular one. And it's incomprehensible to assume that all these people are criminals. And you know, everybody knows the story of Telegram very well. It's not something that was built for criminals. However, this reasoning, as far as I understand, is being used also in our case. They say that, "All right, so you created this app, and this app was used by other people. They were criminals, and you didn't do enough to prevent them from doing what they were doing."
32:12 Speaker 02 Which again is contrary to what we see on other platforms. 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.
32:33 Tucker Carlson? 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? 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, that...
32:53 Tucker Carlson? That's nuts.
32:54 Speaker 02 Well, the logic also eludes me, so to say.
32:59 Tucker Carlson? Back with the Russian understatement. No, I... It's... 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, we'll work it out," or "Call your lawyers." They arrest you in public, they slander you, they try and tie you to the worst crimes man commits, and then they put you in jail. And so they're trying to sweat you, to intimidate you, to wear you down in order to get into the back door of Telegrams, they can spy on people, probably really for political reasons. That's the... 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 its bad governance, like, that's their real fear.
33:44 Tucker Carlson? 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. That's what it looks like.
33:55 Speaker 02 Well, to be clear, nobody approached me with the demand to give the so-called keys. Such keys don't exist technically, but if... 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.
34:12 Tucker Carlson? Well, actually, the US government pushed you. I remember the FBI was trying to...
34:15 Speaker 02 Yeah. Yeah.
34:17 Tucker Carlson? Okay, this is something governments want, not just of you, but of all social media companies.
34:20 Speaker 02 You know what's interesting? In the US, you have a process 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 there are certain legal procedures.
34:40 Tucker Carlson? And not tell his own employer about it?
34:42 Speaker 02 And that, yes, exactly. If you tell your own boss, you can end up in jail, like gag order.
34:48 Tucker Carlson? Actually?
34:49 Speaker 02 Yeah. This is something, it's on Wikipedia. In France.
34:53 Tucker Carlson? Like in the Soviet Union or in the US?
34:55 Speaker 02 In the US.
35:00 Speaker 02 I'm not criticizing.
35:01 Tucker Carlson? So your employees have a legal obligation to act as fifth column spies, saboteurs against you, your employees?
35:09 Speaker 02 Well, that's one of the reasons we didn't discuss last time, why I didn't move to the US with my team.
35:16 Tucker Carlson? And you got mugged in San Francisco on your one trip there.
35:18 Speaker 02 Exactly.
35:19 Tucker Carlson? I never forgot that.
35:21 Speaker 02 But I did this extensive legal analysis. Like, I asked my lawyers, the US lawyers, what is this thing called the gag order? 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. 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? But then, when the French police and the French judges started to send their requests in accordance to their European law, to Telegram, and receive the identification data, I mean, the IP address of criminal suspects, they
36:03 Speaker 02 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.
36:15 Tucker Carlson? Can I ask you to pause? When they said that, I remember that very well.
36:18 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:20 Tucker Carlson? 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. 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 Gallois until he finally gave up and turned over the backend to them. 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.
36:48 Speaker 02 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 of France. Because 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 to certain data, personal data, it has to be done in accordance with laws. And then every company, for example, us, we never disclose private messaging data to any third party, including governments. And if in some country, they would say you have to do it, we would discontinue providing services in that country than doing it.
37:31 Tucker Carlson? Isn't that why you left Russia in the first place?
37:33 Speaker 02 Yes.
37:34 Tucker Carlson? So you've been through this. You left your own country because you refused to give up the privacy of the user.
37:40 Speaker 02 Yeah. But here it's catching up. Because last month, the Senate here in France passed a law basically banning encryption. This law was forcing all messaging app providers to implement a backdoor for the French law enforcement to fight crime. The problem here was...
38:05 Tucker Carlson? Fight crime?
38:06 Speaker 02 Well, exactly. Because the problem here was there is no such thing as an exclusive backdoor. If you implement a backdoor, technically...
38:14 Speaker 02 Other 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. Their private messages would have been exposed.
38:35 Speaker 02 The criminals, however, would have instantly switched to niche, smaller apps, not mainstream apps. And if the government was trying to, would try to ban these apps, they would switch to VPNs. They would, they would even become more efficient in hiding their traces. So the criminals would experience zero problems 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. I asked my French friends, like, have you heard about this law? Like, they know. They were completely unaware. And luckily, the National Assembly here in France shot that bill down.
39:21 Speaker 02 So it didn't pass this time. But if you look at the new project by the EU, by the European Commission, published in early April, 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. Even the places that you would consider authoritarian places, for reasons that I just described, it's just a huge threat for the entire population to... For all users. For all users to legally force companies to implement backdoors.
40:04 Speaker 02 So I think it's very important that people talk about these things. First of all, that France is not a country where freedoms are disrespected. Right? For example, if people assume that France can now take CEOs of tech companies...
40:26 Speaker 02 Hostage in such a way that you describe, and then extract certain personal data from them using illegal and unlawful processes. That would be a big, big blow for the image of France. But I don't think we're there because we haven't.
40:43 Tucker Carlson? It might chip away at this concept of the rules-based order. The rules-based order, which everyone in NATO is always lecturing everybody else about. The rules-based order. There's nothing rules-based about what they did to you. I'm sorry. I mean, that's just, that's might makes right. That's, we have guns and you don't. It's our airport, not yours. You're going to jail. I just don't see the legal justification for doing this to anybody.
41:08 Speaker 02 It was excessive, in my view. But it was also a sign that, again, in my view, this investigation was not based on thorough analysis of what Telegram represents and what the goals of the company are. And again, there has been no attempt, and they had, didn't even try, to solve this in a more traditional, conventional way before starting.
41:41 Tucker Carlson? A legal way, actually.
41:43 Speaker 02 A legal and diplomatic way.
41:45 Tucker Carlson? What'd they do with your phone?
41:47 Speaker 02 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've spent 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.
42:11 Tucker Carlson? Who sells your bonds?
42:14 Speaker 02 Yeah, so Telegram issued bonds a few years ago. We were happy to have the assistance of JP Morgan, the world's leading bank.
42:26 Tucker Carlson? World's biggest bank. So I only ask, I knew that, and I just want you to say it because just to underscore the point. It says you're not like some, you know, Belarusian college student doing this out of your room or something. 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. So I just want people to know this is not some sketchy deal. This is like, I can't, just can't believe they did that. Where are you now in the process?
42:58 Speaker 02 So the process is not going too fast, but this is the tradition here in France, so I'm not...
43:08 Tucker Carlson? I'm just visiting for a couple of days. Do you think I'll get out of here?
43:12 Speaker 02 So I haven't been granted a fast track in my case.
43:20 Speaker 02 And, you know, I've just seen my investigative judges. They have this 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. So I'm not even on trial yet.
43:47 Tucker Carlson? But you're basically imprisoned in France.
43:48 Speaker 02 But I... Well, I'm not imprisoned, but I can't leave.
43:52 Tucker Carlson? Can you leave whenever you want?
43:53 Speaker 02 I can't leave France freely, that's true.
43:56 Tucker Carlson? So what... How is that not imprisoned?
44:00 Tucker Carlson? I mean, they're great restaurants. I'm not... 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?
44:12 Speaker 02 You could say so. I just don't want to create this image of a real prison in the minds of our viewers.
44:18 Tucker Carlson? This is... I don't know if anyone can see the cell we're in. It's very nice. Room service and everything. I mean, no, it's France. It's like very first world in some ways, but not in its attitudes, I'm learning.
44:29 Tucker Carlson? 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, so...
44:39 Speaker 02 Yes, they're all in Dubai, and I have kids in Dubai that I am unable to... 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 been very stressful also for my mom, for my mom, who is gravely ill, like, and I can't see her. I also have this company to run. We have a billion users. It's important. And I'm doing it remotely now, but it's not as efficient. So if you think about it, France is less than 1% of the Telegram user base.
45:22 Speaker 02 It's something like half of 1%. And the other 99.5% are coming from elsewhere, right? India, Indonesia, you name it. And it's kind of counterintuitive for me that the entire organization is impacted because we have this ongoing investigation here in France, particularly given the fact that it's growing in a pace that only requires me to be here once, like, in several months. So I do think that the current restriction is very strange and very unnecessary.
46:05 Speaker 02 And I hope it will be lifted later this year.
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49:04 Speaker 02 Well, let's see, because first of all, this investigation can't last forever. It could probably last for another several months or a year, and then it will have to either go on trial or be concluded.
49:20 Tucker Carlson? Could be criminally charged for this?
49:22 Speaker 02 Everything is possible. Like, you can't rule out.
49:25 Tucker Carlson? Yes, if they'd arrest you at the airport, they'd do anything, right?
49:28 Speaker 02 That's what bothered me when I was in police custody for these four days. Like, first thing, something like this should have never happened, because I assumed there were certain thorough procedures to verify a lot of alleged facts before taking a decision such as this. Like, you can't start something like this based on an immediate article that Telegram allegedly is non-cooperative, or that Telegram supposedly has worse content moderation than other platforms. Both these facts turned out to be completely false.
50:09 Speaker 02 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, for me personally, decisions such as this, I think, impact France as a whole. And I'm French, I'm a French citizen, so I worry about that as well. I really think that out of all social media platforms, Telegram was probably the most friendly.
50:41 Speaker 02 But potential partner for France. And every time anyone from the French government, from the French authorities reached out to me, I did my best to help. I helped. So this, for me, looked almost like friendly fire. Like they're trying to attack their own ally in a way. And I was so surprised that this would happen. Because the collateral damage, not just for me and my company, but for the image of France, is quite significant. 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?
51:26 Speaker 02 Is it still safe to be in France? People were worried. And the CEOs of smaller companies, they don't have a billion users. I even more worried. They say, look, they did this to you and you're very well known and the company of your profile is, you know, should be treated in a certain different way. So, and I'm running a small startup, a friend of mine would say, I'm scared to come. And, you know, this trend continues. So I heard.
51:58 Tucker Carlson? But the sad thing is like, nobody's afraid to go to Uzbekistan, actually. I'm not endorsing Uzbekistan. I've never been there, but I've never met anyone who's like, I'm too afraid to go to Uzbekistan.
52:09 Speaker 02 Yeah, I was there last summer. It was great.
52:11 Tucker Carlson? Okay, I didn't even know that. But that's the point. I mean, right? These countries that you grew up thinking are primitive or don't have functioning legal systems or, you know, whose laws are really a function of the whim of the monarch or whatever, they turn out to be kind of fine with 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? 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 to your principal, like, I don't want to share this with the government. I'm leaving. Didn't you choose this country for citizenship because you thought that it was a place that was committed to human rights?
52:55 Speaker 02 Well, the slogan of France is liberty, return to equality, right? So equality. So it's something that I strongly believe in. And it's certainly something that.
53:09 Speaker 02 France stands for, in my, in my opinion, and for pretty much everybody who was born in the Soviet Union, like I was, Western Europe is considered to be this place where freedoms and human rights are respected. And, and that's why it was such a shock for me back there in the police custody. Interestingly, the interpreter that we had during this four days in police custody also immigrated from the Soviet Union. She was translating English to French and back. And after being present there for two days,
53:53 Speaker 02 she sat during a break with all the policemen and, you know, clerks and everybody present there. And she said, "I left the Soviet Union hoping I would be in a country with freedoms. And, and it seems now that the Soviet Union has caught up with me." 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. However, I understood, I later understood why she was so sensitive to this.
54:36 Speaker 02 Because she actually 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, in this direction where freedoms are less respected,
55:00 Speaker 02 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 with the, about the Communist Party. And I remember having two kinds of ice cream in the shops. Across the city and across the country and no more. 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. That's great.
55:43 Speaker 02 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. Afterwards, I realized that these systems called the free market economy and respect to freedom of speech and basic human rights. They're actually very good concepts because they make your life abundant. But the problem is, I remember this, uh, this life in the absence of these things. Other people from the Soviet Union, probably from Cuba, from other countries like that, experienced that. But people who were born and grew up here, for example, in France, have not necessarily had this experience. They take freedoms for granted.
56:28 Speaker 02 They think that things are going to be fine because we're a free country and what can possibly go wrong? Unfortunately, the history knows many examples when free societies gradually degraded into societies without freedoms. 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.
56:57 Tucker Carlson? So no encryption means no privacy?
56:59 Speaker 02 Yes.
57:00 Tucker Carlson? Correct.
57:00 Speaker 02 It means everybody's vulnerable. Like everybody's messages can leak, can, can, can. It's mind-boggling. And of course, every time something like this is proposed, very logically sounding justifications are used.
57:17 Tucker Carlson? What's to protect the children?
57:19 Speaker 02 To protect the children, to fight crime, to, uh...
57:22 Tucker Carlson? Neither of which they bother doing, by the way. They don't care about children and they don't stop crime.
57:28 Speaker 02 Or in the Soviet Union, they would say, like in Maoist China and other places, they would say, oh, our geopolitical rival is trying to stir chaos in our country. So we have to limit this.
57:39 Tucker Carlson? It's Qatar doing it. It's Russia. It's Qatar.
57:43 Speaker 02 So, yeah, I don't know. But but but...
57:46 Tucker Carlson? You know, 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.
57:56 Speaker 02 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. "You have to remove anything one of the European countries demands you remove, for the entirety of the European Union." So if you have, for example, Romania or Estonia or any other of these 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. Well, it will take you probably several years,
58:41 Speaker 02 but you have to remove them within, like, a very short timeframe. Otherwise, you'll be facing fines, bans, and so on.
58:51 Tucker Carlson? How is it not the Warsaw Pact? I mean, how is it not Soviet? If you criticize the people in charge, we shut you down. That's what they're saying.
58:59 Speaker 02 Interesting you would say that. It was in 2009, 2008, actually. I made my first trip to Latvia on a train from St. Petersburg. And 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. 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. He said, "You know, we hated being in the Soviet Union, but now that we are in the EU,
59:44 Speaker 02 we realize we are in a very similar organization."
59:49 Tucker Carlson? Of course.
59:50 Speaker 02 "We're in the Soviet Union again."
59:52 Tucker Carlson? Unelected foreigners are still making the key decisions, and you don't get to talk.
59:56 Speaker 02 So it's very funny you would compare this to systems. Of course, they're very different, but still...
1:00:02 Tucker Carlson? 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? I have to be able to say to the person making the decisions, "I don't like that decision, and here's why." And I have to be able to say it in public. 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. And that is, I don't know if you thought this through, and you're an engineer, when you built it. But that is potentially a massive threat to governments. Because it's not simply communicating one-on-one. There, you know, people can create their own channels, just like a TV channel, and reach a lot of like-minded people,
1:00:46 Tucker Carlson? and they could potentially organize.
1:00:49 Speaker 02 That's true. But one thing that makes Telegram different, we don't promote these channels. So, everything that you have on Telegram is something that you have to deliberately search for and subscribe for.
1:01:00 Tucker Carlson? Yes.
1:01:01 Speaker 02 So, unlike some other apps that constantly recommend you content and content sources, we don't do that. 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. So, I think we're a completely neutral platform. We allow everybody to express their voice within the rules of the common sense. And then, everybody can decide which point of view makes more sense to them and see if, for example, the government is right or the opposition is right.
1:01:44 Tucker Carlson? Right, well, that's called freedom.
1:01:46 Speaker 02 That's called freedom. Unfortunately, it's something that, surprisingly, faces a lot of backlash.
1:01:54 Tucker Carlson? May I ask you a question about encryption? So, the advances in computing power, well, they're calling it quantum computing, right? So, they're just so exponential that it's hard even to understand for the non-engineer brain-like mind, but they're profound. The speed at which processes are now occurring, does that eliminate... What is the technological state of play? Does that eliminate encryption? The encryption will have to change, correct?
1:02:22 Speaker 02 The encryption has to change, and there has been made progress in encryption, which is like quantum secure, so it's a constant evolution. So the tools to decrypt become stronger, and then the tools to encrypt become stronger.
1:02:42 Tucker Carlson? That makes sense. Are you confident that encryption, that secure encryption will still exist? As a technological matter, with the rise of the superfast quantum computing?
1:02:55 Speaker 02 It's very hard to be confident in anything, because, 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 make it so that you don't have to have the same level of computing power on your device as in a data center.
1:03:20 Tucker Carlson? I was about to say, you don't have to bring a data center with you.
1:03:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, exactly, so it's not exactly like.
1:03:25 Tucker Carlson? Build a nuclear power plant, buy 100 acres.
1:03:28 Speaker 02 You don't have to.
1:03:29 Tucker Carlson? Okay, good.
1:03:30 Speaker 02 But, you know, it continues. So particularly state actors have almost infinite computing power at their disposal, and they have certain technologies at their disposal that they may not be telling everybody about.
1:03:46 Tucker Carlson? They might not be telling people about it?
1:03:50 Speaker 02 So it's very possible that what you're saying will become reality, or is already reality, who knows?
1:03:57 Tucker Carlson? So that kind of is one of the, and I don't, you know, I know you have, well, you're legally bound here in France, so you're under some kind of state control. So, and I know your life is complicated because it's, I don't want to push you to say things or to get you in trouble, but it does feel like a determined government can spy on anybody who wants to. That's the way it feels to me. Do you think that's true?
1:04:21 Speaker 02 Well, I think the biggest risk for personal privacy is.
1:04:26 Speaker 02 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. But everybody else doesn't know, and they can't defend 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. And that was one of these people, eight years ago,
1:05:09 Speaker 02 that had Pegasus installed on their phones, according to the leaked reports.
1:05:15 Tucker Carlson? Been there. 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 been compromised? If what you're looking at and typing is being read by somebody else? Is there any way to know for certain?
1:05:34 Speaker 02 For certain, probably no. But there are ways to check that and see if known vulnerabilities have been exploited on your phone. And I know there are some organizations that can help you with that.
1:05:52 Tucker Carlson? Where's your phone? Did you leave it out?
1:05:54 Speaker 02 I don't use a phone. I haven't used the phone for a year, almost.
1:05:59 Tucker Carlson? Oh, France took it.
1:06:01 Speaker 02 Oh, 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. I just use it to test Telegram, the app, because we have constant product updates. I have to test it like at least twice a week. But I don't, I'm not a user of a phone.
1:06:17 Tucker Carlson? 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?
1:06:25 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:06:25 Tucker Carlson? Because you built it.
1:06:26 Speaker 02 Yes.
1:06:26 Tucker Carlson? So you're coming from a highly informed perspective when you make technology choices. Is that fair?
1:06:33 Speaker 02 You could say so.
1:06:34 Tucker Carlson? Yeah. 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?
1:06:40 Speaker 02 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 potentially...
1:06:56 Speaker 02 Uh, harming my privacy. And I, I, I also just, I, 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. Uh, and, and, and put together some notes or, or some, uh, interact with my team, right? So I wouldn't want to just open my phone and disappear there, consuming, uh, short form content. And that's why I don't use a phone.
1:07:27 Tucker Carlson? I, I'm, I'm 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. 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, but.
1:07:51 Tucker Carlson? So, what do you, you saw Ross Albrecht, Albrecht, guy?
1:07:56 Speaker 02 Uh, the guy who was pardoned, yes.
1:07:58 Tucker Carlson? Yeah, Silk Road.
1:08:01 Tucker Carlson? So he ran Silk Road, and I'm hardly an expert on this. I was very pleased when he got pardoned. Um, 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. He had a site, um, that made commerce possible outside the control of government. And there apparently were bad people doing bad things on it, 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. And so maybe there will all, my short conclusion from this is, as long as people like you create technology that makes it harder for government to control people, you will be
1:08:45 Tucker Carlson? a target of government action. You think that's?
1:08:51 Speaker 02 Well, first of all, I wouldn't necessarily compare Telegram with Silk Road.
1:08:56 Tucker Carlson? And I'm not, and I didn't mean to, but the idea that
1:09:01 Tucker Carlson? the idea that they need to control everything that is happening online, and if they can't, they're gonna punish you. That does seem like a real fact.
1:09:11 Speaker 02 I think everybody's trying to 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." If it weren't for encryption, we would solve all crime. They don't see it two steps or three steps ahead.
1:09:34 Tucker Carlson? Yes.
1:09:35 Speaker 02 And it's not necessarily like some huge conspiracy where the evil governments want to take more and more control, although that may be the case, I'm not knowledgeable on that subject. It seems to me more like everybody's trying to solve the problems that they see using the tools that they have at their disposal, even if it negatively impacts other areas of our lives.
1:10:03 Tucker Carlson? You're a very generous man, I must say. Last question, and thank you for doing this. How long are you gonna be in France? And once you leave France, will you be coming back to France?
1:10:14 Speaker 02 I don't know yet when these restrictions will be lifted. I hope later this year we'll be able to travel to my home country, which is Dubai, freely. I I will probably come back to France because it's a great place
1:10:35 Speaker 02 to spend time in. Of course, I have spent a lot of time in France now, eight months.
1:10:46 Speaker 02 So...
1:10:47 Tucker Carlson? Kind of a full immersion program. How's your French?
1:10:50 Speaker 02 It's actually good. I was very good when I passed my French exam to receive the passport. I got 97 points out of 100. But I didn't practice my French much. Most of my friends are Americans. But even here in Paris. And my French friends speak perfect English, so I didn't get a chance to practice.
1:11:14 Tucker Carlson? But now you've had that chance?
1:11:17 Speaker 02 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. 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.
1:11:43 Tucker Carlson? But you don't anticipate like having to stay for the next 20 years or anything here?
1:11:48 Speaker 02 I would be very surprised if that happened, because you see, I'm traveling to Dubai and coming back. It's just obvious that I'm not somebody who would try to escape forever. And this investigation has to be concluded in 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 crazy, I would say, if I would have to move to France and live here permanently for the whole duration of this process.
1:12:29 Speaker 02 I would say that most likely, I expect that I would be able to travel again later this year.
1:12:39 Tucker Carlson? Well, we're certainly rooting for you. Pavel, thank you very much.
1:12:41 Speaker 02 Thank you so much.
1:12:47 Tucker Carlson? We want to thank you for watching us on Spotify, a company that we use every day. We know the people who run it, good people. While you're here, do us a favor. Hit Follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode. We have real conversations, news, things that actually matter, telling the truth always. You will not miss it if you follow us on Spotify and hit the bell. We appreciate it. Thanks for watching.
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