I'll bite (I'm not German but I'm close culturally):
* Old Androids are not repairable because they're shit, not because a megacorp works hard to make repair impossible
* Old Androids may be hacked by a pegasus-like software (just like most new smartphones anyway), but at least the operating system does not lock you into its own closed ecosystem.
You may disagree, and correctly, because it's in part irrational, but many Europeans just dislike Apple and consider Android a more open/free ecosystem.
I have bought an Android phone and I couldn’t even change the font used or use an ad blocker on the browser it comes with. It comes with advertisements on the home screen and if I disable them half of the system functions stop working. Seems it’s not open at all. Sent it back the next week. </rant>
I'd believe there was some truth in that if they used any open apps but they just lock themselves into Google's ecosystem instead. All their data is siloed in some US cloud.
If you run like that it doesn't matter what phone you use and your privacy and openness arguments are moot.