ANSWERED No Servers in France ?

[Allerednic 0]

Hi everyone here !

I'm just very happy with AirVPN. Except one thing : No servers in the country I live, which is France. 😦
So then, in case of a research concerning french people I need to disconnect my VPN, to get relevant answers.
Does AirVpn plan to open new servers in France in the (close) future ?
If not... why ?

Thanks a bunch for shedding some light on this subject !

Edit : I'm really sorry I found an answer after posting : Should be because of mandatory data retention.Shame!!

Edited ... by Allerednic
Edit : Sorry ! Found an answer..

[BaGamman 4]

Airvpn is kind of a low profile VPN and it's very hacker/piracy friendly and free speech oriented. Exactly what France is not.

Now, why would they bother to put server in a contry with one of the worst spitting on Internet freedom there is to Europe ?
Mass surveillance and lots of effort to filter out piracy/porn websites (The Pirate Bay, Ygg Torrents), and a certain taste to block what they consider to be whatever they consider outside of the regime's reach (Rumble, Telegram). Let's not forget france seriously plan to kill whatever remain of Anonymity online in the name of counter terrorism.

If anything, it's extremely unrecommanded to dwell in the internet with a french IP and I massively support AirVPN does not set foot on this dictatorship wannabe.

[korgen 4]

I'm French and I can tell you that what you're telling about mass surveillance and  lack of free speech in France is totally false and slanderous.
Of course they try to close direct download or torrent websites, like in the USA and many many countries. The majority of closure requests come from the American major companies.

Dictatorship... Really funny !

[Staff 9968]

Hello!

We have no plans to operate VPN servers in France (and in Italy) for the mandatory data retention framework still enforced in disdain of three different legally binding decisions of the CJEU (see below). France is in breach and Italy is too, but the Commission hesitates to open infraction procedures. Since the decisions pertain to the the preservation of a fundamental human right enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and in the European Convention on Human Rights, it does not seem inappropriate to consider that both France and Italy are committing one of the worst breaches a EU Member State can be guilty of.

We might challenge with a casus belli the (il)legal framework in France, but we are already committed in other EU countries and we can't open potentially multiple legal battle fronts.

The Court of Justice declares the Data Retention Directive to be invalid
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-04/cp140054en.pdf

The Members States may not impose a general obligation to retain data on providers of electronic communications services
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2016-12/cp160145en.pdf

The Court of Justice confirms that EU law precludes national legislation requiring a provider of electronic communications services to carry out the general and indiscriminate transmission or retention of traffic data and location data for the purpose of combating crime in general or of safeguarding national security
https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2020-10/cp200123en.pdf

Kind regards
 

[McFly 3]

Excellent to see AirVPN give a detailed rationale for the inquiry.  Bravo. 

[bnrrteterstnjrsj45 0]

On 11/23/2022 at 9:07 PM, korgen said:

I'm French and I can tell you that what you're telling about mass surveillance and  lack of free speech in France is totally false and slanderous.
Of course they try to close direct download or torrent websites, like in the USA and many many countries. The majority of closure requests come from the American major companies.

Dictatorship... Really funny !

Jesus goes to give fullness of freedom, especially in money wealth. Don't ask what's that means, I'm sure lot of people already know everything. Time is coming.

[Devante Weary 2]

On 11/23/2022 at 7:07 AM, korgen said:

I'm French and I can tell you that what you're telling about mass surveillance and  lack of free speech in France is totally false and slanderous.
Of course they try to close direct download or torrent websites, like in the USA and many many countries. The majority of closure requests come from the American major companies.

Dictatorship... Really funny !

I know this is a year and a half later but you just cannot see what we see being on the outside.
France heavily censors their online content. 
Of course being INSIDE a propagandized country, you wouldn't see it.

However, I'll give you an example.  
When Rumble wanted to stream in France, France demanded the censor a bunch of their content based on "disinformation" which was really just videos questioning the COVID jab and other political topics.

No matter what you believe, if you can't at least TALK about something, that's called censorship.

[korgen 4]

On 3/17/2024 at 7:44 PM, Devante Weary said:

I know this is a year and a half later but you just cannot see what we see being on the outside.
France heavily censors their online content. 
Of course being INSIDE a propagandized country, you wouldn't see it.

However, I'll give you an example.  
When Rumble wanted to stream in France, France demanded the censor a bunch of their content based on "disinformation" which was really just videos questioning the COVID jab and other political topics.

No matter what you believe, if you can't at least TALK about something, that's called censorship.

Let's be clear. French web isn't closed, we can consult foreign websites unlike in North Corea, Russia or China. Name me any propagandized country who allows his people to consult other medias.
Telling we wouldn't see anything is insulting our intelligence.

Why don't we talk about US government who wants to ban TikTok, like Huawei and many others ?
The difference between Rumble in France and Tiktok in US is pretty simple. Tiktok didn't boke US laws so the government had to find excuses related to "national security".
Rumble hosts prohibit contents according french and european laws. France asked to Rumble to remove these contents (accounts belonging to russian medias doing disinformation (these medias are not only banned in France but also in whole Europe), to far right ppl, etc...). In France you're not allowed to publish anti-semitic speech in front of a nazi flag and that's normal.
Sorry to tell you but it's the only truth, there's no conspiracy theory in this affair.
 

[pHxaq 0]

On 3/21/2024 at 6:57 PM, korgen said:

Let's be clear. French web isn't closed, we can consult foreign websites unlike in North Corea, Russia or China. Name me any propagandized country who allows his people to consult other medias.

France asked to Rumble to remove these contents (accounts belonging to russian medias doing disinformation (these medias are not only banned in France but also in whole Europe), to far right ppl, etc...). In France you're not allowed to publish anti-semitic speech in front of a nazi flag and that's normal.

I beg to differ with @korgen.
With all due respect, can't you see how these two paragraphs contradict each other? Things banned in many places doesn't make it a "good thing". "Many people do it, so it must be good", that's a bandwagon fallacy.
The government decides what is good or bad for you, the media shows you what they want you to see, ergo you can't consult foreign websites you don't even know that exist because "they" protect you from asking questions or thinking a different thing. There's no need to ban them because the masses won't even think on searching for something like that.
It's like using TOR to find onion sites. How would you find them if you don't know they exist?

[Devante Weary 2]

On 3/21/2024 at 2:57 PM, korgen said:

Let's be clear. French web isn't closed, we can consult foreign websites unlike in North Corea, Russia or China. Name me any propagandized country who allows his people to consult other medias.
Telling we wouldn't see anything is insulting our intelligence.

Why don't we talk about US government who wants to ban TikTok, like Huawei and many others ?
The difference between Rumble in France and Tiktok in US is pretty simple. Tiktok didn't boke US laws so the government had to find excuses related to "national security".
Rumble hosts prohibit contents according french and european laws. France asked to Rumble to remove these contents (accounts belonging to russian medias doing disinformation (these medias are not only banned in France but also in whole Europe), to far right ppl, etc...). In France you're not allowed to publish anti-semitic speech in front of a nazi flag and that's normal.
Sorry to tell you but it's the only truth, there's no conspiracy theory in this affair.
 

You've basically just said that you're OK with government propaganda AND government censorship.

You've proven my point. Edited ... by Devante Weary

[korgen 4]

Wrong. There is a difference between censorship and illegal content. Americans cannot understand this nuance because of the 1st Amendment that allows everything.
Laws banning illegal content are NOT censorship. In our country, advocating Nazism, publicly inciting the hijacking of planes to crash into buildings, advertising sects, or publishing suicide tutorials, that's not legal and therefore the public publication of this type of content is forbidden.
As I said, in a country practicing censorship, you CANNOT consult media other than those controlled by the government, you CANNOT consult foreign media. Here, we can !!!
“you cannot consult foreign sites that you do not even know exist” that is a false argument. Nothing stops you from reading articles in any newspaper, doing all the Google searches you want. In our country if you don't know the existence of a subject, NOBODY stops you from learning about it and finding out about it.

Furthermore, the ramblings about France are biased because the example of Rumble is not just illegal in France but throughout Europe.

I will not continue any further on this stupid subject, the allegations you are making about my country, which you clearly do not know, are infamous and borderline racist.

[Devante Weary 2]

Ah yes, when you don't have a real argument, fall back to the old racism tactic.  

For some odd reason you think that if something is codified in law, it cannot be censorship.  
 

[go558a83nk 362]

1 hour ago, Devante Weary said:

Ah yes, when you don't have a real argument, fall back to the old racism tactic.  

For some odd reason you think that if something is codified in law, it cannot be censorship.  
 

They're also living under the assumption that government is benevolent and righteous.  Have they forgotten that the government of the very thing they detest (nazism) made illegal many things...was it ok because the government made them illegal?

[Staff 9968]

23 hours ago, korgen said:

Laws banning illegal content are NOT censorship

According to this definition there is no censorship at all anywhere enforced by governments, not in North Korea, not in France, not in China...

Please note that your definition is pure fantasy, if not insulting. Censorship is exactly suppression of speech, public communication, or other information subversive of the "common good", or against a given narrative, by law or other means of enforcement. The fact that censorship is enforced by law or by a government body does not make it less censorship. Furthermore, historically censorship was an exclusive matter of some central authority (the first well documented case is maybe the censorship rules to preserve the Athenian youth, infringed by Socrates, for which he was put to death, although the etymology comes from the Roman Office of Censor which had the duty to regulate on citizens' moral practices) and today censorship by governments is predominant.  Even In modern times censorship through laws has been and is predominant and pervasive according to Britannica and many academic researches.

Then you can discuss ad nauseam whether censorship by law is "right" or "wrong", whether France's censorship is "better" than China's censorship, but you can't change the definition of censorship, otherwise this discussion will become delirious.

Kind regards
 

[BaGamman 4]

The Telegram CEO political arrest finally settled the debate.
It's unjustifiable, AirVPN need to stay away from these lands or one day or another people in charge of the service will be sent there by a plane and put in a cage for 20 years.

[Devante Weary 2]

On 9/2/2024 at 6:27 AM, BaGamman said:

The Telegram CEO political arrest finally settled the debate.
It's unjustifiable, AirVPN need to stay away from these lands or one day or another people in charge of the service will be sent there by a plane and put in a cage for 20 years.

Yep, if ole @korgen still thinks "it's totally false and slanderous".

[Antho45 0]

Hi there !
I live in France and I think someone saying what Korgen did here is either a gullible fool or a troll. Censorship is blatant here !