But he later announced steps appearing to bow to Paris’s demands.

On Sept 6, he said Telegram would alter its “people nearby” feature to present users with “legitimate businesses” rather than “bots and scammers”.

“This year we are committed to turn moderation on Telegram from an area of criticism into one of praise,” he said at the time.

He was released on a €5 million (£4.2 million) bail but must remain in France and report to police twice a week.

‘Misinformation’

Critics say Telegram has become a hotbed of misinformation, child pornography, and terror-related content partly because of a feature that allows groups to have up to 200,000 members.

Meta-owned WhatsApp, by contrast, limits the size of groups to 1,000.

Telegram was under fire last month for hosting far-Right channels that helped provoke riots in English cities this summer.

Mr Durov, who rarely speaks in public, has a fortune estimated at $15.5 billion (£11.6 billion) by Forbes magazine, but touts the virtues of an ascetic life that includes ice baths and not drinking alcohol or coffee.

He came to prominence in Russia by founding Vkontakte, a social network modelled on Facebook. 

He lost control of that company after refusing to hand over data on Ukrainian protesters to the Kremlin and left Russia in 2014, saying he would never return. He headed to France and went on to find wealth with Telegram, founded with his brother Nikolai in 2013.

According to Mr Durov, Telegram has around 900 million active users worldwide.