Telegram founder Pavel Durov has doubled down on his claims that France’s foreign intelligence agency pressured him to censor conservative voices on his platform, dismissing their purported law enforcement concerns as a “manipulation tactic.”

On Sunday, Durov accused the head of the Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE), Nicolas Lerner, of asking him to take down Romanian Telegram channels ahead of the country’s presidential runoff.

The DGSE rejected the allegations of political interference, insisting that it had contacted Durov on multiple occasions only to “firmly remind him of his company’s responsibilities, and his own personally, in preventing terrorist and child pornography threats.”

“French foreign intelligence confirmed they met with me – allegedly to fight terrorism and child porn. In reality, child porn was never even mentioned. They did want IPs of terror suspects in France, but their main focus was always geopolitics: Romania, Moldova, Ukraine,” Durov said in a post on X on Monday.

The Russian entrepreneur argued that Telegram has long combated child abuse through “content fingerprint bans, dedicated moderation teams, NGO hotlines, and daily transparency reports on banned content.”

“Falsely implying Telegram did nothing to remove child porn is a manipulation tactic,” he added, insisting that Telegram’s extensive moderation efforts have been “verifiable” since at least 2018.

Durov, whose company is headquartered in Dubai, was arrested in France last August and charged with complicity in crimes allegedly carried out by Telegram users, including extremism and child abuse. He was released on €5 million ($5.46 million) bail and dismissed the charges as baseless. He was eventually permitted to leave France in March after assuring the court that Telegram had increased cooperation with the authorities worldwide.