It’s still good PR for linux

Being French, I am not knowledgeable enough beyond Europe 😁.

For context, Germany recently did a last minute blockage of a European move towards mass surveillance of messaging (called chat control), and a v2 is already being prepared for another attack on privacy at European level.

We are living in interesting times.

All secured OSes and messaging systems are threatened by European governments / EU institutions at the moment, and the French government has been doing so for a few years.

This is not a grapheneOS only issue and it is not new.

Having a secure phone / secure messaging has been seen as suspicious by the police in france for several years now.

This has already been used against eco activists to detain them preemptively and a few times to increase charges towards terrorism / organized crime when possible.

From France: news outlets began parroting government stating GrapheneOS is used by narcos.

GrapheneOS reacted strongly.

However, France is on a very shitty auth-right trend (including arresting Telegram founder) so the reaction is very understandable.

French billionaires are actively promoting fascism, headed by Bolloré who owns a TV station similar to foxnews and has a neo Nazi body guard on his private island.

French police is killing more people every year, with little to no consequence. French protests have changed from family walks to full riots as police attacks peaceful protests (a recent leak shows amongst other things a riot-cop telling his officer during what can only be described as a battle that protesters have children amongst them, officer replies that it’s what you choose when protesting).

It’s not about tech, it’s about control of the masses so they don’t rebel.