French interior minister Bernard Cazeneuve will meet his German counterpart later this month to push an international initiative against encrypted messaging.

Cazeneuve will meet Thomas de Maiziere, Germany’s interior minister, to establish a European position. The meeting will happen on 23 August, said Reuters.

The French politician argued recent terrorist attacks in European countries have been planned using secure messaging apps, which national security agencies have struggled to crack.

The man who recently murdered a priest in France in the name of Islamic State communicated with other followers using Telegram. The terrorist group is thought to be a major user of secure messaging apps.

Cazeneuve did not spell out whether the French government had already approached messaging firms and asked for their co-operation or not.

He said the government intended to lead other countries on the encryption issue, as it had last year on an internet initiative. In 2015, Cazeneuve asked Google, Facebook and Twitter to work directly with the French government on removing extremist propaganda.

In the midst of an investigation, the interior ministry does not always want to go through the usual government-to-government channels, which is too slow a process, he argued at the time.