Par
Ludivine Laniepce
Published on
France and Europe know it: their dependence on American software could cost their administrations, their businesses and individuals dearly. The deterioration of relations between the United States and the European Union made the latter realize that it was urgent to develop its own solutions because it could not live without the omnipresent tools of the world’s leading power. Visa and PayPal, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, Windows and macOS, Messenger, WhatsApp and iMessages, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and X, ChatGPT, Gemini and Alexa, Google Maps and Apple Maps… The consequences of a digital embargo are dizzying. To raise awareness about this situation, an adopted Cotentinais, Marco Teani, launched an online petition to encourage us to use French digital tools or, the leastEuropean. As of March 2026, it has already collected 41,000 signatures.
Sylvain Peyronnet is working on the development, in Normandy, of IBOU, a French search engine hosted in France and the Netherlands.
Christophe Rosenbergprofessor of computer science at Ensicaen, is a member of Greyc, the digital sciences research laboratory at the University of Caen-Normandy.
Together, they help us see things more clearly.
How can we explain our delay?
Table of Contents
Christophe Rosenberg : “The North American philosophy is very different. In Europe, we have focused on security and the protection of privacy, starting with the pioneering 1978 law in France. The Americans were in a perspective business first. Privacy was seen as a waste of time at first. They first prioritized customer loyalty, then the services offered. And in business they are very aggressive. The power of GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, Editor’s note) has taken hold, we cannot compete. »
Sylvain Peyronnet: “We failed. This is an eminently political question and state lobbying is involved. The Americans pushed the development of their solutions very quickly in the 1990s. They were visionary. Europe has been softer and we are paying the price now. This requires colossal investments to return to the forefront. »
What are the risks?
Sylvain Peyronnet: “The power is held by the one who can cut off access to software. Without Google, half of company mailboxes no longer work. The American administration can even cut off access to a digital tool for individuals, as evidenced by the case of Nicolas Guillou, who can no longer pay anything by bank card (French judge under American sanctions by decision of Donald Trump). Everyone has doubts about the United States. To be independent, you would have to have total control of all the building blocks that make up a technology, from hardware to software. Bricks are distributed all over the world and the administrations and laws of different countries are involved. Imagine an American company managing something that would pass through a pipeline, with a right of access to what is stored there. There are many things that we do not control and that poses problems for strategic data, corporate business and our private lives. In France, American software is used in almost all administrations. There is also a problem with the data hosted in the cloud (digital space) American. We could really lose access to our data. »
Christophe Rosenberg : “There is an awareness of the impact of this addiction. Our data is sucked up to design new services but also to obtain information about us. And it’s easier for the United States because its services go beyond its borders. However, sovereignty is control. The electronics and equipment part too. But we don’t have a French processor. A malicious country could do something in this way without us being aware of it. »
Is sovereignty possible?
Sylvain Peyronnet: “It’s illusory but choices are still possible. Among the alternatives, there is OpenOffice, Infomaniak (a Swiss suite which is a good alternative to Google) or even Proton whose servers are in Norway. »
Christophe Rosenberg : “It’s utopian but we need to move forward. We really have a long way to go and it takes time and resources. The most important thing is to first host our data in a cloud in Europe. Then, we can gradually migrate to software open source (free software) of which we have access to the code and which are auditable. »
What are the solutions?
Christophe Rosenberg : “The question arises particularly for companies and communities which do not have the means to develop their tools. We need credible alternatives and service providers capable of managing this software as well as GAFAM. For example, we could already generalize basic software for small town halls. This can also bring jobs, because if the services are French, the companies will be too. »
Sylvain Peyronnet: “It’s a political question. A city can decide to change tools, but this would have a fairly heavy cost, even if only to train the agents. And technical teams are always needed. Many companies today choose to switch to local solutions. The State must be the prescriber for public institutions. LaSuite (suite of free software for French public officials) is beneficial and already allows you to free yourself from office automation, messaging, video and file transfer. We don’t yet have an equivalent for everything but it’s bubbling and I really believe in it. »
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