France: What Happened to You, Man?

The charges in the case of Telegram founder Pavel Durov reveal a stunning turn away from very recent French outrage about surveillance

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Now, now, before

On Monday, October 21, 2013, the U.S. ambassador to France, Charles Rivkin, was summoned to the French Foreign Ministry in Paris on urgent business. Le Monde published excerpts of revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden showing that across thirty days, the U.S. National Security Agency intercepted “70.3 million recordings of French citizens’ telephone data,” revealing surveillance on a “massive scale.”

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault demanded “clear answers” and insisted the U.S. work with France in “creating the conditions of transparency so these practices can be put to an end.” Secretary of State John Kerry happened to be in Paris when the Le Monde story broke. Ahead of a meeting with “Monsieur Kerry,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius seethed the surveillance was “totally unacceptable” and “we have to make sure, very quickly, that this no longer happens.” A week later, Kerry admitted U.S. spying “reached too far.”

Times have changed, apparently. So much for Voltaire: