So it sounds like they had their hand forced in that instance to provide the data and got a court ruling that allows them in the future to not retain that data. I would trust them.
This is how they try to portray it after their choice to comply. Fully.
They also said in the clarification thingy:
The identity and location of the activist was already known to the French authorities...
It's only by them I heard this claim.
Proton gave the IP address, person got arrested is the story I know and it's the one presented in the euronews article.
...(they had already been evicted once before for squatting, and the nature of squatting means that their location is known).
What a weird statement to make to justify giving up an IP address. Actually, I find it weird in all contexts.
Cmon… It’s a sentence linked to the next one. They are not using that as a way to justify anything, they just explained...
This is precisely the reason why I used both quotes. For me, their "explanation" is pure nonsense. Even more so due to their claim latter on in this same text, saying that:
we are activists, too.
On your question on which email provider I'm using, I could say that my activity does not demand precautions like VPN but there are some providers that I don't use. Proton is one of them, because they promised to users and delivered for police. And what did they have to say on their promises?
We will be making updates to our website to better clarify Proton Mail’s obligations in cases of criminal prosecution and we apologize if this was not clear.
This sounds to me like "sorry for making false promises, we just wanted our statement to sound cool enough to convince you to use our services".