The National Assembly has deleted the amendment that would have weakened the encryption of private messaging systems by introducing backdoors. Is this good news for you?
Yes, it's clearly good news, because this provision seemed to me to be insufficiently regulated. I share the objective, which is to give the security services more resources to better combat extremely serious attacks on public order, but it was crucial to preserve the integrity of encryption so as not to undermine individual freedoms and citizens' private lives. Weakening encryption would have posed considerable problems, particularly in terms of trust in our everyday digital tools. It is likely to create security loopholes that unwanted third parties could exploit.
We must continue to think together about solutions that reconcile public security with the strict protection of individual freedoms. It's a delicate balance, but one that we need to strike collectively.
You recently wrote on X that it is possible to give the services the means to act while respecting individual freedoms. In practical terms, what are you proposing?
In practical terms, we must avoid at all costs opening the door to solutions that create backdoors, because they automatically weaken the entire digital security system. I know that wasn't the intention behind this provision, but the way it was drafted it nevertheless carried the risk of doing so. What I would like to see is a strengthening of the technical means of investigation, but without undermining cryptography itself. There are alternative technical solutions today, which we need to study in depth to enable investigators to act without compromising overall security.
The key is to have a transparent and technical debate. There must be an ongoing dialogue with the government's technical experts, digital companies and parliamentarians to explore all possible avenues. Only then will it be possible to come up with effective and secure targeted systems that scrupulously respect privacy and the security of communications media.
"We need to be vigilant about preserving individual freedoms in general, it's not an issue that dates back to today" You were alerted by the threat from the Signal application to leave France if this amendment passed as it stood?
I didn't need to wait for Signal's communication to become aware of the risk that this amendment represented. Right from the start of the work and the introduction of this amendment in the Senate, I remained very vigilant on this subject. It's not just a question of certain companies leaving France, which would of course be regrettable, but also of striking the right balance between legitimate security objectives and the need to respect fundamental rights and freedoms.
Apple recently filed a complaint against the British government, which demanded that it introduce a backdoor into the encryption of its cloud. Is this a wake-up call for Europe when it comes to individual freedoms?
We need to be vigilant about preserving individual freedoms in general, it's not an issue that dates back to today.
As it stands, the drug trafficking bill provides for the introduction of a presumption of money laundering for any user of cryptocurrency mixers or natively anonymous cryptocurrencies. What is your position on this issue?
I understand the intention behind this amendment: to combat money laundering and the criminal activities that could exploit these tools. However, I personally believe that we already have a sufficiently solid legislative framework to control these practices and punish abuses. I therefore question the added value of Article 4, as the law already provides (since 2013, editor's note) for a presumption of money laundering where an act of concealment or conversion cannot be justified by any other motive than the desire to disguise the origin or beneficiary of the funds. Anonymous cryptos and mixers correspond to this definition, so it is already applicable to crypto-assets. Introducing an explicit presumption therefore does not seem necessary to me, as we are already well equipped legally.
"I will engage in dialogue with the AMF to identify these obstacles more precisely, and how to remove them" Are some criticisms of cryptos unjustified?
What I don't like is that digital tools are often caricatured as means to encourage crime. Like every tool, some make good use of them, others don't, but let's not fall into stereotypes. The proportion of crime in cryptos remains a very small minority of all uses, as your recent article has shown. Millions of French people have invested in cryptos, around 15% of the population and mostly young people, they are not potential criminals and should be treated like any other investor.
This whole approach is part of this desire to make the crypto sector more attractive that successive governments have been implementing since 2019 with the Pacte law. It is important to combat the grey areas, without forgetting to remain attractive to this emerging sector, which has many fine French companies. I will be bringing crypto players together in April to assess the state of the sector and ensure that we remain a place of choice.
Fairly, some crypto start-ups are criticising the AMF's slowness, saying that approval applications take far too long to be processed due to a lack of resources. What's your response to this?
I'll be engaging in a dialogue with the AMF to identify these obstacles more precisely, and how to remove them. When people tell me that things are moving faster in other EU countries, that's not quite what we had in mind initially. We share with the AMF the desire to support innovative projects and the attractiveness of France.
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In the United States, the position on cryptos has swung quickly from anti-crypto to very favourable. What is your analysis?
In fact, there has been a lot of movement around tech and cryptos since the arrival of the Trump administration. But France and Europe can congratulate themselves on having had a stable and consistent position from the outset.
In France, we have always sought to build a balanced, attractive but responsible legal framework that protects citizens without unnecessarily hampering innovation. For me, this kind of balanced and sustainable approach is the right strategy: it provides visibility for industry players while ensuring solid protection against risk.
What do you say to those who equate cryptos with the far right (including recently Marine Le Pen, via her proposal on mining, editor's note) ?
This caricatural association bothers me deeply. I totally reject the idea that cryptocurrencies would be reserved for an extreme political fringe. On the contrary, the crypto ecosystem brings together people from all political, economic and social persuasions. Reducing it to this image would be dangerous and misleading.
We absolutely must avoid the crypto debate being hijacked by a single political family. In fact, that's why I encourage all players to invest in this field to avoid damaging ideological recuperation.
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