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      Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Defends App in First Comments Since Arrest

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      Pavel Durov, held in France since last month, blamed “growing pains” for the company’s problems and pledged to make improvements.Pavel Durov, the founder of the online communications tool Telegram, said on Thursday that it was a “misguided approach” to hold him personally responsible for the spread of illicit content on the platform.Mr. Durov’s comments, made on his Telegram account, were his first public remarks since he was arrested at an airport outside Paris and charged last month by the French authorities for failing to prevent illegal activity on the app. The crimes on Telegram included the spread of child sexual abuse material, fraud and drug sales, French prosecutors have said.“No innovator will ever build new tools if they know they can be personally held responsible for potential abuse of those tools,” Mr. Durov wrote. He said “growing pains” on Telegram, which has 950 million users, had made it easy for criminals to abuse the platform.“That’s why I made it my personal goal to ensure we significantly improve things in this regard,” he said.Mr. Durov’s case has become a point of contention in the politically charged debate over the limits of free speech on the internet. Telegram is committed to light supervision of what people say or do on the platform. The app has helped people living under authoritarian governments communicate and organize. But it has also become a hothouse for disinformation, extremism and other harmful content.Telegram has long been in the cross hairs of global law enforcement agencies because it has refused to cooperate with the authorities. French prosecutors said Mr. Durov had been arrested in part because of Telegram’s “almost total lack of response” to requests related to criminal investigations.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Least 12 Die Trying to Cross English Channel, French Authorities Say

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      The French maritime authorities said that 65 people were picked up from the sea after their vessel encountered unspecified difficulties.At least 12 people died after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the coast of northern France on Tuesday during an attempt to cross the English Channel, the French authorities said. It was the deadliest episode in the waterway this year as French and British governments struggle to prevent attempts at the perilous crossing.Gérald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said on the social media platform X that the vessel sank off the coast of Wimereux, in an area of the Pas-de-Calais region where several similar tragedies have occurred this year. Two people were still missing and several others were injured, Mr. Darmanin said.“All government services are mobilized to find the missing and care for the victims,” he said.The French maritime authorities said in a statement that dozens of people fell into the sea after their vessel encountered unspecified difficulties on Tuesday morning off the coast of Cap Gris-Nez, which at some points is less than 30 miles from the British coastline.Rescue workers picked up 65 people out of the water, some of them in critical condition, and rescue operations involving helicopters and several ships are still continuing, the maritime authorities said in a statement.One of the worst migrant-related accidents in the Channel happened in 2021, when 27 people died after their boat capsized, but similar tragedies have repeatedly occurred on a smaller scale. Five people died at sea in January near Wimereux as well; five people died in similar circumstances around the same area in April.Last week, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain and President Emmanuel Macron of France pledged to increase cooperation in the English Channel and to dismantle human smuggling networks, which the authorities on both sides of the waterway have blamed for the repeated deaths.“The leaders agreed to do more together to dismantle smuggling routes further upstream and increase intelligence sharing,” Mr. Starmer’s office said in a statement after the two leaders met in Paris.The Channel is one of the busiest shipping routes in the world. Its waters are especially icy in the winter, winds can be treacherous, and migrants trying to cross often crowd onto flimsy inflatable boats.“It’s a particularly dangerous sector even when the sea looks calm,” the maritime authorities said in their statement on Tuesday.Most of those who try to cross the Channel leave from the Pas-de-Calais. Many are from Afghanistan, Albania, Eritrea, Iraq, Iran, Sudan and Syria, according to the French authorities, and they cluster in makeshift camps on the coast of northern France before trying to cross.Many prefer risking the trip over staying in France because they see Britain as an attractive destination with a strong job market where English is spoken, or because they already have family there or people they know from their home country. More

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      Eiffel Tower Will Keep Olympic Rings Permanently, Mayor Says

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      “I want the two to remain married,” Mayor Anne Hidalgo of Paris said in a newspaper interview.The giant Olympic rings that were installed on the Eiffel Tower for the 2024 summer Games will become a permanent fixture on the monument, the mayor of Paris revealed on Saturday.Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that it was a “beautiful idea” to combine a quintessentially French icon, the Eiffel Tower, which was originally built for the 1889 World’s Fair, with a global one. The five interlaced rings of blue, red, yellow, black and green, which represent the different continents, were installed this summer between the tower’s first and second floors, more than 200 feet above the ground.“I want the two to remain married,” Ms. Hidalgo said in an interview with Ouest-France, a newspaper.The Eiffel Tower, already one of the most widely recognized monuments in the world, with about seven million visitors per year, has been a prominent symbol of this year’s Olympic Games, which ended earlier this month, and of the Paralympic Games, which will end on Sept. 8.Medals won by athletes are encrusted with pieces of the famous landmark; Celine Dion made a triumphant comeback by singing from the tower during the opening ceremony; and the monument has become a stunning backdrop for beach volleyball and blind football.Olympic competitors pass the Eiffel Tower at the start of the women’s road race in August.Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesMs. Hidalgo said that she had written to President Emmanuel Macron of France to notify him, because the Eiffel Tower is “part of our national cultural heritage.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Telegram’s Top Executive Pavel Durov Reportedly Detained in France

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      The founder of Telegram, an app with more than 900 million users, was taken into custody by the authorities, French media reported.The French authorities on Saturday detained Pavel Durov, the top executive of the online communications platform Telegram, on charges related to the spread of illicit material on the service, according to French news reports.Mr. Durov, 39, a Russian-born entrepreneur, was reportedly arrested at Le Bourget Airport near Paris after landing from Azerbaijan. His detention could not immediately be confirmed.The Russian Embassy in France said in a statement on Sunday that it had asked the French authorities for clarification on news of the arrest.Representatives of the French police and Interior Ministry declined to comment and redirected questions to the Paris prosecutor’s office. The Paris prosecutor’s office, citing an open investigation, also declined to comment.Telegram did not respond to requests for comment.In an interview on Telegram, George Lobushkin, a former press secretary for Mr. Durov who remains close to him, wrote, “This is a monstrous attack on freedom of speech worldwide.”Telegram, with more than 900 million users, has long been on the radar of law enforcement agencies around the world because terrorist organizations, drug runners, weapons dealers and far-right extremist groups have used it for communicating, recruiting and organizing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Suspect Arrested in French Synagogue Blast

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      Antiterrorism prosecutors said officers had taken a man into custody in connection with a blast outside a synagogue.French authorities announced Sunday shortly after midnight that they had detained a suspect in connection with Saturday morning’s attack on a synagogue in southern France, which is being investigated as a terrorist act.As law enforcement officers were trying to arrest the suspect around 11:30 p.m. Saturday, he opened fire, the antiterrorism prosecutor’s office said in a statement, adding that the officers had returned fire. In the process, the man was wounded in the face, the statement said. The extent of his injuries and whether the arresting officers were injured were not immediately clear.Two other people were also taken into custody, the statement said, referring to them as members of the suspect’s “entourage” without providing further details.The suspect was arrested in Nîmes, a city about 24 miles from La Grande Motte, the resort town on the southern coast where the attack took place. Two vehicles exploded outside a synagogue. The doors to the building were also set on fire, the antiterrorism prosecutor’s office said.French authorities have publicly condemned the attack, which comes during a time of mounting fears about antisemitism in the country. In the first three months of 2024, France recorded more than 360 antisemitic episodes. That is an average of four a day — and an increase of 300 percent over the same period in 2023, the government said.“To attack a French person because he is Jewish is to attack all French people,” Gabriel Attal, the prime minister, wrote on the social media platform X before the arrest, adding that nearly 200 law enforcement officers had been mobilized to find the suspect.The attack has sharpened anxiety and reopened painful memories for Jews across France, which has the largest Jewish population in Western Europe and a history of deadly, antisemitic attacks and messaging.The war in Gaza has only heightened tensions and debates about antisemitism in France, where antisemitism and support for Israel emerged as prominent themes in the recent national elections.The far-right National Rally party, once known for antisemitism and tinged with Nazi nostalgia, emphatically expressed its support for Israel. The left, by contrast, tends to be pro-Palestinian in policies and statements. The attack on the synagogue in La Grande Motte could have been far worse. Five people, including the rabbi, were inside when the vehicles exploded. No one was killed, but one police officer responding to the explosions was hurt when a gas bottle near one of the vehicles exploded, the antiterrorism unit said.National antiterrorism prosecutors are investigating the episode as a terrorism-motivated assassination attempt, among other charges.“We probably avoided an absolute tragedy,” Mr. Attal, the prime minister, wrote on X.Aurelien Breeden More

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      France Aligns With Morocco on Western Sahara, Angering Algeria

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      President Emmanuel Macron wrote to King Mohammed VI that France approved a plan for the disputed territory’s autonomy under Moroccan sovereignty.France has backed a plan for the autonomy of the long-disputed Western Sahara territory under Moroccan sovereignty, a diplomatic shift that immediately provoked condemnation from Algeria, a former French colony and Morocco’s rival in the region.In a letter to King Mohammed VI of Morocco that was made public on Tuesday, President Emmanuel Macron of France said that Morocco’s plan was “the only basis for achieving a just, lasting and negotiated political solution in accordance with the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council.”That was a notable departure from France’s prior position. The French authorities previously argued that Morocco’s plan for autonomy, which was put forward in 2007, was a “serious and credible” basis for discussion, but not the only one.Excerpts from Mr. Macron’s letter, which were sent to the king on the 25th anniversary of his ascension of the throne, were made public on Tuesday by Mr. Macron’s office.“I consider that the present and the future of Western Sahara fall within the framework of Moroccan sovereignty,” Mr. Macron wrote.Western Sahara, once a Spanish colony, was annexed by Morocco in 1975, prompting a 16-year conflict with the Polisario Front, an independence movement representing the region’s Indigenous Sahrawi ethnic group. A United Nations-brokered cease-fire in 1991 was broken in late 2020, but the region has been stable recently.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Olympics Has a Bad Guy: Anyone in an Argentina Jersey

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      Grudges from the World Cup and rugby union have spilled over to the Games. But is this new sports feud even real?The Olympic Games have long been governed by a tacit code: If fans can’t say anything nice, they shouldn’t say anything at all. Jeering, whistling and catcalling at athletes who have spent years to make it to the pinnacle of their sports is “unacceptable,” as Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, once put it. To boo is, well, taboo.As far as the French are concerned, though, there appears to be one exception: anyone wearing the sky blue and white of Argentina.In the opening few days of the Paris Games, Argentina was booed before, during and after a men’s soccer game in Marseille. It was heartily booed for three days straight every time its men’s rugby sevens team appeared at a packed Stade de France. And it was booed again whenever one of those rugby players had the temerity to touch the ball.Its anthem was booed once more — although a little more gently — when Argentina’s team made its debut in the men’s volleyball tournament at the South Paris Arena on Saturday evening.The hostility has left some of the country’s opponents wondering what is going on. Nicholas Malouf, an Australian rugby sevens player, said he “did not know the background” behind the tension. Antony Mboya, representing Kenya in the same sport, assumed the local French crowd was just “backing an underdog.”In reality, the animosity is much more targeted. Both sides have come to understand that France, at this moment in time, does not much like Argentina. “It has become a real rivalry for us,” said Jules Briand, a French fan who traveled both to watch his team compete in rugby sevens and to indulge in a little jeering.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The Best Looks of the Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony

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      Paris raised the fashion stakes for the XXXIII Olympiad, and even with the rain, the result transformed the Seine into a watery runway. Even before the XXXIII Olympiad officially began, the litany of firsts was enormous. The first Olympics in Paris in a century. The first with equal gender participation. The first opening ceremony, ever, en pleine air. The first sponsored by a global luxury behemoth.The first Olympics in which fashion was so central to the identity of the host country itself.The opening ceremony featured not only a red carpet at the entrance but offered a full-blown runway show in the middle of vignettes devoted to the history and spirit of the country, including the French Revolution and the reconstruction of Notre Dame. As the monuments of Paris — the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Palais, the Place de la Concorde — provided the backdrop to the event, style was at its heart.The bar was set as soon as it was announced that LVMH would be a premium partner. The goal, according to Thomas Jolly, the Games’ artistic director, was to “shed light on French savoir-faire,” broadly defined. They did it with cabaret and heavy metal, dance, acrobats and 1,800 outfits from brands both new and old. From the start, it was clear the fashion competition stakes would be raised for every other national team. At the opening ceremony for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, Team USA with flag bearer LeBron James (in foreground holding the large American flag).James Hill for The New York TimesIt’s tempting, during an Olympics, for teams to resort to the usual uniform of blazer and chino in national colors (yes, we’re looking at you, USA and Ralph Lauren), to default to the basic athleisure warm-up suit (hello, Italy in Emporio Armani and Canada in Lululemon) or to fall into a trap of national stereotype (Bermudans in Bermuda shorts).But by the time the Olympic cauldron had risen aloft beneath a hot-air balloon, and Celine Dion had begun to belt beneath the Eiffel Tower, and despite the rain that had pelted down requiring mass distribution of ponchos, it was clear the most memorable looks belonged to the teams who played their own fashion game. Not to mention the attendees who dressed for the occasion, and the brand that turned out to have been the secret couturière to the celebrity performers.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More