Author: Vince Quill, CoinTelegraph; Translation: Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

According to multiple reports, multiple French government websites were taken offline due to a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, believed to be associated with a Russian Hacker organization.

The affected websites include the Paris Administrative Court, the ansm.sante.fr website of the French Ministry of Health, and the pages of the Supreme Court.

Source: Entropia Intel and Cointelegraph

The preliminary report from Entropia Intel suggests that ** this attack is believed to be a response to the arrest of Pavel Durov, the founder of Telegram, in France on August 24. **

Macron says arrest is unrelated to politics

On August 26, French President Macron issued a statement on the arrest of Durov, stating that it is not politically related. Macron reiterated France's commitment to freedom of speech, while emphasizing that the outcome of the Durov case will be determined by France's independent judicial system, not by its political institutions.

Source: Emmanuel Macron

French President Macron's remarks have sparked strong opposition from the cryptocurrency community and free speech activists, with former VanEck digital asset strategist Gabor Gurbacs asking: "You arrest this person and then see if he did something wrong? Is this what you call 'rule of law' and 'freedom of speech'?"

The call for Durov's release is strong, including industry leaders such as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. After the news of Durov's detention, Buterin expressed his concern:

"I have criticized Telegram for not taking encryption seriously before, but from the information currently available, it seems that this accusation is only 'unaudited' and has not disclosed people's data. This looks very bad and is worrying about the future of European software and communication freedom."

French prosecutors have released the latest news on August 26, revealing that French law enforcement officials may detain Durov until August 28 for questioning the alleged crimes committed by the 'unidentified individuals' operating on the platform.

As of the writing of this article, Durov has not been formally charged with a crime by French officials, nor has any illegal behavior been proven.