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ZDNET’s key takeaways
- France is dropping US videoconferencing companies in favor of its personal open-source program.
- Visio is being deployed now and can exchange different companies by 2027.
- Visio is a part of a a lot bigger EU transfer to digital sovereignty.
It is not in regards to the French authorities not trusting US tech firms… Sorry, really, it’s. It is all about France not trusting American firms with its information or companies.
As David Amiel, France’s minister-delegate for the civil service and state reform, put it: France is dedicated “to regaining our digital independence. We can’t danger having our scientific exchanges, our delicate information, and our strategic improvements uncovered to non-European actors.”
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So, France is pushing US tech giants out of the French authorities. They’re transferring civil servants off Microsoft Groups and Zoom and onto a homegrown videoconferencing platform known as Visio — all within the identify of sovereign management over its digital infrastructure.
Paris has framed the choice as a strategic break from dependence on American cloud and collaboration platforms. The French authorities is explicitly linking it to a broader doctrine of “digital sovereignty.” This EU-based motion, which has been round for over a decade, is devoted to the proposition that EU international locations ought to depend on native EU tech firms, cloud companies, and platforms.
Non‑European platforms is not going to be renewed
EU officers argue that counting on US-hosted companies exposes authorities discussions to overseas legal guidelines, such because the 2018 US Cloud Act, which authorizes the US authorities to entry information even when servers are situated on European soil.
Transferring to the sensible particulars, below the brand new videoconferencing plan, the MIT-licensed, open-source Visio will likely be rolled out throughout all ministries and state companies, turning into the default and ultimately the unique videoconferencing instrument for French authorities employees. Visio has no relationship to the Microsoft diagramming and flowcharting program of the identical identify.
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Transferring ahead, licences for Zoom, Microsoft Groups, Google Meet, Webex, GoToMeeting, and all different non‑European platforms is not going to be renewed as departments migrate, with full deployment focused by 2027.
France’s Interministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs (DINUM) developed Visio as a sovereign videoconferencing platform for the French state. The Netherlands and Germany have additionally helped with its improvement. This system was constructed utilizing Django, the open-source Python net framework; React, the JavaScript library for constructing consumer interfaces (UIs); and LiveKit, a scalable video conferencing system. Visio provides options resembling HD video calls, display sharing, and chat.
It has been examined for a few 12 months and already has roughly 40,000 common customers, with an growth path to some 200,000 employees within the close to time period.
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Visio is a part of a broader Suite Numérique challenge, a household of open-source sovereign software program packages designed to switch US companies resembling Gmail, Slack, and different collaboration instruments at present utilized by the French administration. As a contemporary conferencing product, Visio provides AI‑powered transcription and speaker identification, constructed with expertise from French begin‑up Pyannote, and integrates with current safe messaging techniques like Tchap, which runs on the Matrix protocol.
Officers mentioned the software program stack was developed with help from France’s cybersecurity company ANSSI to harden encryption and meet nationwide safety necessities.
France is making this transfer not solely to help digital sovereignty and enhance safety. The Élysée can be promoting the change to save cash and stimulate native trade. Authorities estimates recommend that discontinuing exterior videoconferencing licences might save round 1 million euros per 12 months for each 100,000 customers who transfer to Visio. The transfer aligns carefully with an EU‑degree push to scale back reliance on dominant US cloud and software program distributors; the European Parliament not too long ago adopted resolutions urging extra management over important digital infrastructure and AI platforms.
When digital sovereignty turns into coverage
France’s pivot lands at a time of heightened transatlantic rigidity over information safety, antitrust, and industrial coverage. It additionally sends a transparent sign that not less than one main EU state is, on the highest degree, prepared to enshrine digital sovereignty as coverage moderately than a distant aspiration. Many different EU entities — together with an Austrian ministry, the Austrian navy, the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, Danish authorities organizations, and the French metropolis of Lyon — are dropping Microsoft packages in favor of homegrown European alternate options.
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Not everybody in Europe is captivated with digital sovereignty. Börje Ekholm, CEO of Swedish telecom gear agency Ericsson, not too long ago mentioned at Davos that current European discussions round sovereignty are “harmful,” and that makes an attempt to construct homegrown alternate options to US expertise would result in increased costs within the area.
Be that as it could, if Visio can match the usability and uptime of US firms whereas maintaining information inside European authorized jurisdiction, Paris might have created a template for different international locations looking for to maneuver away from reliance on American expertise.
